Amiss
by Belicia Zarita
Summary: Part 1/3 of the "Mind Tricks" series. After a bizarre abduction by Kane, Rey Mysterio awakens in a psychiatric hospital where he is told his last year of memories never happened. And that is only the beginning of his problems. Sequel titled "Out Of Hell."
1. Chapter 1

Rey opened his eyes, blinking a little as he did, wincing. He had a dull headache but it was nothing he wasn't used to. It was dark in the room...damn dark. He cast his eyes around a minute, blinking, taking in his surroundings as best he could with his remaining senses. He was in bed, he could tell that much...there was a pillow under his head that was about the thickness he usually preferred, somewhat heavy blankets over him but with that dull musty-clean scent that pretty much said "hotel bed". And considering what he did for a living, that was a good bet.

It wasn't quite right, though. The air didn't smell right. He didn't frequent the Hilton hotels or anything, but this place smelled like a hovel. He kept his price range reasonable but he never stayed in dirty hotels. Not to mention that he couldn't readily make out a window and what hotel room didn't have one of those massive windows with that annoying gas light right outside?

Plus there was the fact he still had his mask on.

"What in hell...?" he murmured, reaching up to touch his face, and hesitating when he was aware of an unfamiliar weight on his wrist. He pulled his arms out from under the blanket and blinked when he heard faint sounds of metal clinking, along with the weight on both wrists. He held his arms up a moment, then carefully used his left hand to probe at his right wrist, eyes wide in the dark when he felt a thick metal band with a chain attached. He let his hand run along the length of thick chain as far as he could, then examined his left wrist the same way and finding the same thing. Apparently, his wrists were chained together, but with enough slack that they weren't really restrained in anyway...just...held.

Rey slowly sat up, turning to slip his feet out of bed, and gasping a little when he felt the same weight on his ankles. He turned so he was sitting on the edge of the bed and leaned down, feeling along, at the same time noticing that he was dressed in what felt like a t-shirt and jeans, bare-footed. He could feel the same heavy cuffs and chains on his feet, but swinging his legs made him realize that there was a similar length as well...again, not really restraining his motion, just being there.

"What _is_ this?" Rey murmured aloud, standing from the bed, feeling what he swore was soil under his feet, which just further confused him. Where was he? He held his hands out in front of him, moving forward carefully, going only a couple of steps until he felt a wall. He kept his hands on it, moving until he felt the corner of the room, then stood there, facing the corner, feeling the wall. He decided after a moment that it was wallpapered...it felt smooth and he couldn't otherwise recognize the texture...then he turned and put his back into the corner, still trying to see through the absolute blackness.

The last thing he could remember was leaving a house show. He'd wrestled Nunzio, nothing special there. He'd come in the back, chatted with the Mexicools a bit, showered, put on the clothes he was wearing now...although he'd been wearing shoes, too...and gone out to the parking lot to look for his car. Then...then...nothing. Here. So something had happened in the parking lot.

Rey continued along the wall, looking for...something. Another piece of furniture, a phone, a door...anything. But the texture remained smooth and there was no change he could feel...no visible light, no nothing. Where was the door? How was he in a room with no door? Judging from the length of the wall, he could guess it was also a fairly large room...with a dirt floor and no doors?

"Hello?" he called out, trying to keep any sort of tremble from his voice. "Hello? Can anyone hear me? Hello? Where am I?"

A dim light flicked on, but even it was enough to make slam his eyes closed and cover his face. He slowly peeked between his fingers as he adjusted, staring at the contents of his room. The walls weren't wallpapered at all, but were made of flat concrete...and the floor was a dry, sandy red soil. The king-sized bed was almost directly across from him, and the ceiling, about ten feet high, seemed to be made of wooden planks. And on the wall he hadn't gotten to yet, there was a flight of wooden stairs that led up to a closed wooden door. Aside from that, there was nothing in the room at all...no chairs or furniture or anything except for the large bed. "What's going on? Where am I?" Rey called again, moving towards the stairs, the chains for his ankles dragging in the dirt behind him.

He could hear movement above his head, and he froze, looking up towards the ceiling, listening. Footsteps...definitely sounded like footsteps. Heavy ones, too. Which meant there were people up there. And judging from the general shoddiness of his location, maybe this was a basement of some kind. He hurried to the stairs and headed up them, stepping carefully to avoid tripping over the chains on his ankles. He grasped the doorknob, trying to twist it a couple times, but the door was locked and there was no give. He hesitated, then knocked at the door. "Hello? Is there anyone out there? Hello!"

The movement ceased, and he leaned against the door, pressing his ear to it to try and listen. There was nothing but silence and a faint humming coming through the door, as though there was something mechanical about it. He stepped back a bit, then tried ramming his shoulder into it, grunting hard when he just about bounced off, almost falling off the step he was standing on.

"Someone open the door! Let me out of here! Please!" Rey yelled, pounding on the door with his fist, wincing at the chain rattling as he did. "Hello? Somebody? Somebody let me out of here! Help! Somebody open the door!"

The light suddenly flicked off again, and Rey gasped, dropping to all fours and holding onto the stairs, blinking in the all-consuming darkness. He couldn't see even a sliver of light coming through from where the door was, and he didn't hear even a hint of sound now. He barely suppressed a small whimper of fear...where the hell was he and what was going on? He stayed down so he could feel his way carefully down the stairs, wincing a bit as he moved. He felt a tug on his foot and grunted, the chain having caught on a stair, and it took him a minute to find the snag and pull it loose before he made it back to the floor and felt safe to stand up again.

He chewed his lip hard as he stared in the direction he thought the bed was in, turning and starting to move towards it, sliding his feet carefully and holding out his hands in front of him. It unnerved him that there was no sense of time...he didn't know what time it was or even what day it was...or month or year...

__

Stop that shit, Rey, you know pretty damn well you weren't out for months or years. Probably not even days. Probably just a couple hours.

Still...it was disorienting. He jumped when his foot touched the bed, and he leaned forward, crawling onto the bed and laying down in the middle of it, casting his eyes around the room, hoping to find any sort of clue. There was nothing, though...no relief to the complete, unyielding blackness...no sign of where he had ended up, why he was here, who was responsible for putting him in this place...and who was up there now. He shivered faintly, reaching for the blankets and burrowing himself under them, curling up, trying to ignore the feeling of the chains where they touched him.

( )

Rey was almost startled when his eyes shot open again, and he was bewildered for a moment when it seemed that his vision hadn't returned. After a moment, he remembered, and he moved to sit up, grunting when something seemed to prevent it. He froze where he was, blinking fast, then tried shifting his body, but he seemed to be constricted in some way...he couldn't raise his arms or bring his legs apart even though he could squirm a bit. He gasped softly, straining some, trying to force himself out of his position on his back, his arms pinned tight against his sides, but he couldn't move. "Hey...hey! Someone...what's going on? Let me go!"

The light flicked back on again, and Rey winced, blinking against it. He could see now that the light source was coming from a single bare bulb dangling from the ceiling, with cobwebs apparent all along it. He glanced up towards the ceiling, then at the door, still struggling slightly, trying to free himself. He looked down and could see that it looked like his arms were tied against his side with wide straps of worn leather and his legs were wrapped in it as well...and the chains were still connected to his feet and wrists. He arched his back hard, trying to strain against the bonds, then fell back against the bed, panting a little, shaking his head some.

"Hello! Is someone out there? Oh God..." Rey looked around the room again. "This can't be happening to me...oh my God...HELLO! Somebody! Help me!"

He heard the creaking again, as of someone walking above his head, and he panted a little, still squirming against the bonds. The sound was moving the direction of the stairs and the door, and he watched, chewing his lip. Please...please God, let this be someone who can help me...

The door creaked open the barest amount, and Rey turned his head as far as he could, trying to see who was coming. "H-hello? Who are you? Help me!"

The door swung inward, but Rey could only make out a silhouette from the light blaring in from behind the person. He chewed his lip, pressing back against the bed, shaking his head a little as he heard a faint chuckle.

"My, my my...look at what I've got here..."

Rey gasped as the person started down the stairs, eyes widening when they stepped out of the blaring light, and he recognized the huge frame, the glaring blank eye, the sneering laugh..."Oh my God..."

Kane sneered as he made his way down the stairs, tilting his head back a bit as he did. "Well, well...Rey Mysterio, here and in the flesh. What a lucky, lucky find for me. Look like you're all ready to see me, too."

"Get away from me!" Rey yelped, struggling harder, trying to squirm his way off the bed. "Don't you touch me!"

Kane only laughed again as he hopped off the bottom step, swaggering his way carelessly to the side of the bed, rubbing his hands together like the villain in an old black and white movie. "Oh, Rey, Rey...see, the thing of it is, the reason you're here..." Kane tilted his head back, chuckling some as he clapped his hands together, then he looked back down. "You're here specifically _because_ I want to touch you."

Rey's eyes, if possible, widened even more, and he pressed himself back into the bed. "No."

"Awww…now what's the matter, Rey-Rey? Don't you like me?" Kane reached down, grabbing Rey by the face and hauling him up so that they were eye-to-eye, holding him as though he were going to kiss him. "I think you could do a lot worse than me, little man."

"Let go of me!" Rey grunted, struggling harder, trying to pull away. He tried not to show how desperate his movements were, trying to pull his legs apart, get his arms up, do something, but the leather straps wrapped around him were too strong to break and too tight to wiggle out of, and he knew he was visibly wriggling, even though every part of him was trapped by the enormous madman sitting next to him.

Kane, for his part, only chuckled at his efforts. "Awww…what's wrong, little Rey? Don't you want to be here with me? I thought you would be the type to like this sort of thing…"

"Let me GO!" Rey screamed, throwing his head back and forth, managing to dislodge his head from Kane's hands, but only falling back against the bed, not any safer for the slight distance he'd put between them. "Get away from me!"

Kane just smirked down at him, reaching out to put a hand on Rey's chest, splaying it out easily across the thin cloth of Rey's shirt. "I'm afraid I just don't want to do that, Rey. You see…" Kane shifted a bit to lean over him, Rey pressing himself back into the mattress to try desperately to avoid him. "You've intrigued me these last few weeks, little Rey."

"Get AWAY from me…" Rey gasped out again, still recognizing the futility even as he got the words out. "Get away!"

Kane just smirked, standing, bracing himself by the hand on Rey's chest, pressing him down into the mattress again. "As you wish, then, my little Rey. Just remember that you asked to be left…alone…" Kane laughed again, turning his back and starting up the stairs. Rey stared after him as he reached the top of the wooden stairs, and the bare bulb abruptly winked out. Rey winced as the light from the doorway was the only illumination left, putting Kane back into silhouette.

"Good night, little Rey," the larger man called back to him, and he stepped through, pulling the door shut, and collapsing the room back into blackness.

__

Oh God, oh please God no...Rey thought, shivering some. Not him...anyone but him...anywhere but here, God, please...

No one answered him…nothing remained but the dark and the silence, and the faint sounds of his own terrified breathing.


	2. Chapter 2

Rey bolted upright out of bed, gasping loudly and looking around frantically. "Get away...get away!"

There was a startled snort from next to him, and he glanced over, panting for breath...and surprised to see Dave Batista sitting up in a chair, grunting and rubbing his eyes slightly, as though he'd been awakened from a deep sleep. "Ungh...Rey?"

"What...what happened...? Where...?" Rey turned his head looking around the room, blinking. He was no longer in the dark basement, but instead now seemed to be in some sort of hospital room...institutionally white and pale green, tiled floor, antiseptic smell. There was a barred bed beneath him, with the typical somewhat ribbed hospital blankets over him, though rather than a paper gown, he seemed to be in some sort of white pajamas, maskless. Dave, next to him, had apparently been dozing in a recliner next to his bed, wearing an uncharacteristically loose black t-shirt and worn jeans. He was now looking at Rey with something of a look of concern.

"You okay, man? Have a bad dream?"

"I...where...where am I? What happened?"

Dave sighed softly, rubbing the bridge of his nose between his fingers, in a way that seemed almost...exasperated. "You're in the hospital, Rey."

"Obviously...how did I get here? Did...someone find me?"

"Find you?" Dave raised his head, seeming a bit confused. "Find you where?"

Rey gulped. "With...with Kane..."

Dave stared at him another moment, then sighed some, standing. "Damn..."

"What? Dave, what? What is it?"

"You'd been doing better...hang on, I'm going to get the nurse..."

"What? Dave..." Rey tossed the blankets aside, pushing down one side of his bed and starting to stand, wincing a bit at how weak his legs felt. "Ah, dios...Dave, what's going on? What do you mean...?"

Dave glanced back at him, then shook his head a little, actually leaning down and putting his hands on Rey's waist, physically lifting him and putting him back on the bed. "Just stay put a minute, okay? Can you do that for me?" He smiled faintly, seemingly trying to be reassuring, but the smile was strained and tired.

Rey chewed his lip, but nodded slightly, as the larger man turned and exited the room. Rey stared after him, reaching down to rub his wrists slightly, wincing a bit when he noticed they still felt a little sore. He didn't know why Dave was acting so strangely about his questions, but figured that perhaps something more had happened...obviously, he had been unconscious again, though he couldn't remember when or how he had gone out. Rey winced slightly, wondering if things had gotten a lot uglier and he simply couldn't remember...and Dave didn't want to be the one to tell him.

But what did he mean by "You'd been doing better," anyway?

The door came open, and a woman wandered in...about his height, but somewhat portly, with short, curled hair about the same shade as Ric Flair's, a pair of glasses perched on the end of her nose with a small length of gold chain hanging from the ends. She was in a uniform of sorts, a sort of grayish jumpsuit...though Rey felt she couldn't have looked more grandmotherly even if she were in a flowered dress and sun hat.

"Good afternoon, Rey," the woman said brightly, coming over and taking a blood pressure cuff from the wall next to his bed. Rey dutifully held his arm out as she put the cuff on and started squeezing the small rubber sphere, watching the small gauge on the wall carefully.

"Hi. Um...listen, am I all right? Why am I in the hospital?"

The nurse glanced towards him a moment, gazing at his eyes, then glanced back at the gauge, almost inaudibly clucking her tongue. "Don't worry, Rey, Dr. Asheville will be in to talk with you shortly."

"So...what, did Kane rough me up or something? Or...anything else?"

"Kane?" The nurse straightened, then glanced back at Dave, who had silently slipped back into the room behind her.

"Another fellow we used to work with...he could sometimes be a bit...nightmare-inducing..."

"Ah..." The nurse turned her attention to the gauge just a moment, then began removing the cuff.

"Wait...used to work with?" Rey stared at Dave. "What do you mean, used to work with? Did he get fired for kidnapping me, because I can't say that I feel sorry for him..."

Dave studied Rey again, and this time Rey was easily able to see the look of concern...hinted with pity. "Damn..." he said, glancing at the nurse. "He was doing so much better yesterday...I was starting to think..."

"What do you mean, I was doing better yesterday?" Rey asked. "I have to say this is preferable to a damn basement!"

"Listen, just calm down, honey..." the nurse said soothingly. "Your doctor will be in very soon." She put the cuff away, then nodded to Dave. "I'll go pick up his lunch tray...he'll need to eat before his medicine..." She turned and left the room, leaving Rey staring up at Dave.

"Why does she keep talking about me like I'm not here?"

Dave sighed slightly, moving over to sit on the bed next to him. "You remember who I am, right, Rey?"

Rey stared at him a moment. "Of course I remember who you are. I mean, it's been a while since we talked, but last I checked, we were still friends."

Dave tilted his head a little. "How long has it been since we talked, Rey?"

The smaller man stared at him again, then shook his head again. "All right...what the hell is going on? Where am I, and why is everyone acting so completely weird?"

Dave rubbed his temples a moment, then almost murmured. "You're in the hospital, Rey. You're in the same hospital you've been in for almost a year now."

Rey blinked, then looked around. "Um...wait, what? What do you mean, a year? What kind...wha...no. That's not right, Dave. I was wrestling Nunzio just...I guess a week or so ago. I mean, Kane didn't have me that long and he certainly didn't hurt me that bad..."

"Kane has never kidnapped you, Rey. No one has, not him, not JBL, not anyone. You've been here the entire time."

Rey just looked at him blankly, and Dave looked back, looking somewhat saddened. Rey shook his head slowly, scooting back a little. "Why would I be in the hospital for an entire year? I'm not hurt..."

"Not physically..."

Rey opened his mouth to say something else, but the door shuffled back open, and the nurse returned, carrying a blue tray with some plastic covered dishes on it, and Dave stood, sliding over a rolling bed table and putting it in front of Rey while the nurse put the tray on it. "There you are, Rey, you go ahead and eat up." She glanced over at Dave. "Dave, is there anything I can get for you?"

"Nah, I'll grab something later...thanks though, Marcia."

The woman nodded and turned, heading back out, as Rey picked up one of the covers, making a face at the sliced sandwich...some sort of meat and cheese, it was all he could tell...then he put the cover back down. "Dave?"

"You need to eat, Rey. You have to take your medicine in a little while and you always get sick if you don't eat first."

"What are you _talking_ about?" Rey pushed the tray away, starting to get to his feet. "Dave, for God's sakes, tell me what's going on!"

Dave rubbed his temple again, sighing as he reached over and pushed Rey lightly back onto the bed. "Rey, listen to me...just calm down, okay? Everything is going to be all right. You just need to relax. We're here to get you help, all right? No one wants to hurt you."

"But _what_ is going _on_?"

"Look...if you eat your lunch, I'll explain to you, okay?" Dave got up and got the tray, pulling it back over in front of Rey.

Rey rolled his eyes slightly, then uncovered one of the dishes, starting to nibble at the sandwich. It wasn't the worst thing ever, but it certainly wasn't anything he'd have sought out on his own.

Dave watched a moment, then glanced down at his folded hands, sighing. "Rey, what month do you think it is?"

Rey raised an eyebrow. "Um...it's July, right? I mean, that's what it was before..."

"July of what year?"

Rey scoffed a little. "July of 2006, of course, what the hell do you think?"

Dave shook his head a little, sighing softly. "It's not July, Rey. And it's not 2006. It's March. Of 2007."

Rey raised an eyebrow, stopping in mid-bite to stare at him. "What?"

Dave reached out to touch his arm lightly. "Rey, this...this hospital you're in. It's not like a normal hospital. It's...it's a place for people who are having more...mental trouble than physical. It-,"

"Wha...wait...you're saying I'm in a _nuthouse_?"

"No, no no no, Rey, no, listen..." Dave shook his head slightly. "It's not a nuthouse...it's not like anything you might have seen on TV or anything like that. This is just a hospital that happens to have a lot of specialization in psychiatric care...I mean, there's a floor up that's, you know...more _severe_, but...you're just here for observations, and...because you aren't a threat or anything to anyone..."

"What do you mean? Why in the name of _hell_ would I need to be in a hospital for psychiatric care? I mean, sure, I'm obviously not the sanest guy walking the face of the earth, but come on!"

Dave chewed his lip, seeming to be contemplating whether or not to answer, before he did. "Do you remember when...when Eddie died?"

"Of course I do...how could I forget?"

Dave reached out to hold Rey's hands in his for a while. "Well...for a couple months, you seemed to be okay...you and me did some tag-teaming, you won the Royal Rumble, you know, things were good..."

"Yeah...I remember all that..."

"Well...then No Way Out...you had a match with Randy Orton..."

"I remember that, too. I lost, but Teddy put me back in Wrestlemania and I won there."

"No...no, Rey...that's...that's not how it happened. You...you didn't do very well that night. When you came to the back, you sort of got a little hysterical. We tried to calm you down, but you just kept getting worse and worse...and...finally you just...collapsed."

Rey stared at him, blinking a couple of times. "No...it wasn't like that, I don't..."

"We took you to the hospital, we thought maybe you'd gotten hit in the head too hard or something...and there wasn't anything wrong with you...not physically. But you were out of it for a few days...you just...laid there and didn't speak, didn't move, you wouldn't respond to _anything_. And...finally, when you did start speaking again, you were...confused..." Dave squeezed his hands. "You kept getting the dates mixed up...you would forget some of us and you...you asked for Eddie a lot. And we tried to tell you that...well...when we did, you just...you would get hysterical again and...it just stayed bad...you talked about all these things that didn't happen, that never happened, like...like winning at Wrestlemania..."

"But I _did_ win! I remember winning, I remember! I lost to Booker because-,"

"Shhhh...calm down...please don't get upset again..."

"But I _remember_!"

Dave closed his eyes, seeming to be trying to hold back a reaction, then stood. "Look...Rey...I'm going to go get your doctor and have him come on in, okay? You can talk to him about all this...I...it's going to be okay, okay? Just...please calm down..."

"But Dave, I remember...look, something else had to happen...I mean with Kane and..."

Dave stood quickly, pulling away. "Look...I've got to go...I'll see you this evening." With that, the bigger man turned and all but fled out of the room, pulling the door shut tightly behind him.


	3. Chapter 3

Rey watched as Dave exited the room, staring at the door for several seconds after the larger man closed it. He then reached up to rub his temples, squeezing his eyes closed and sighing softly. He then stood, starting towards the door, then hesitating a moment, wincing slightly. Rey felt how tired and weak his legs were...he doubted he wanted to waste too much energy...so he scooted back and sat back down on the bed, leaning down to lay on his side, getting comfortable.

Was Dave telling the truth? He had no reason to lie, not that Rey could think of readily. But still...how could what he had said be the truth? Rey rubbed his wrists again, wincing. They were definitely sore, that was proof enough that those chains had been on his arms and feet from before. And eight months was a lot of time to have just...lost. And that stuff about his mental state...it just didn't feel right. It _couldn't_ be right. Obviously, something else had happened that Dave was trying to keep him protected from by not telling him.

He would just have to ask his doctor about it, then. Rey sat up, scooting back to the edge of the bed and reaching over for the tray, examining his half-eaten sandwich disdainfully before shoving it away again, sighing and looking down, swinging his bare feet off the side of the bed, just waiting.

It wasn't long, fortunately. After only a couple of minutes, the door opened, and a tall fellow in a white lab coat entered. He was probably about fifty or so, with black hair streaked with gray and a pair of wire framed glasses, staring intently down at a clipboard as he entered. "Good afternoon, Rey."

"What time is it?" Rey asked, tilting his head.

"It's a little after one. How are you feeling today?"

"I'm feeling fine, uh...what was your name?"

The doctor glanced back up at him. "You don't know who I am?"

"Um...well, no, am I supposed to?"

The doctor made a slight humming sound, clicking his pen and starting to scribble busily at his clipboard. "Do you know what day this is, Rey?"

Rey sighed slightly. "No...I don't. I have no earthly idea what day it is."

"Today is the day for your group session...and what day does that happen...?" Rey stared at the man, and after a moment, the doctor looked back up at him. "Rey?"

"Are you crazy?"

The man chuckled very slightly. "That's not the first time I've had that question posed to me, Rey."

"Yeah, well, I mean it. Listen...I really, really have no idea what is going on here. I don't understand why people are acting like I'm out of my mind but are not answering any of my questions with any kind of straight answers. I just want to be told what is going on without being peppered with questions about the date or who people are or where I am. Just. Tell me."

The doctor nodded slightly, making another note, then coming over to the lunch tray, lifting it and examining the food.

"And by the way, I didn't eat very much. It's kind of hard to eat when you're getting interrogated."

"I can imagine so." The doctor walked over to the recliner where Dave had been sitting previously and settled into it. "All right, Rey. Where would you like me to start?"

"Maybe at the beginning? Dave was telling me stuff about losing a match and going all...weird and forgetting people and stuff. But I DIDN'T forget anything. I can remember everything that's been going on, I remember Eddie dying, I remember losing the match to Randy, I remember Wrestlemania and everything like that. And I _very_ distinctly recall waking up within the last couple of days, down in some dirty, dark basement with chains on my wrists and my ankles, and then being all tied up, and that giant freak of nature Kane coming down and basically threatening to rape me. That is all _perfectly_ clear."

The doctor nodded, making more notes, flipping a sheet on the clipboard, then looking back at him. "All right, Rey. Now, I'm going to try and explain things to you, just like you want."

"Finally."

The doctor nodded. "Now, first of all...my name is Dr. Asheville. Leonard Asheville. I've been your physician for over a year now."

"I don't know you."

"That...I'm coming to that."

"I have never seen you before in my life." Rey turned to face him, frowning. "I don't. I don't know you from Job."

Asheville nodded, raising one hand. "All right...all right. That's fine, that's...that's a bit of a setback but it's all right..."

Rey growled, leaning forward. "You're doing it again...you are NOT. Answering me."

"Right, right, I'm sorry." Asheville leaned back in the chair. "Listen, Rey. You have been here, in this hospital, for over a year. In that time, you have experienced a vast array of disassociative symptoms...you have forgotten family members, friends...you have hallucinated things, entire events that never occured."

Rey blinked a little. "What? That's..."

"You seem to have your good days and bad days, Rey. For a while now, you've been behaving almost normally, responding to treatment and therapy...now it seems as though you have regressed badly. You seem to be telling me that you have forgotten an entire year of treatment and once again substituted in your own false memories."

"This is impossible..." Rey turned to get off the bed. "This is completely impossible." He hesitated, then turned back towards him. "What about my arms? They're sore exactly where Kane had cuffed me."

Asheville nodded somewhat, looking down to make another note on his clipboard. "Your wrists are sore because a week ago, you had a psychotic episode and attempted rather forcibly to take your leave. The orderlies were forced to temporarily move you upstairs into restraint until you calmed down."

"Psychotic episode? I...I would never-!"

"You did..."

Rey blinked, turning to look over his shoulder at the door, seeing that Dave had stepped back inside, holding a half drunk bottle of Sprite, his face unreadable.

"We were watching television and something you saw made you want to go home...when we told you that you weren't able to, you screamed at me...basically said that you could leave whenever you wanted to and no one could stop you. I tried to talk to you, and you hit me in the face and tried to run. When I grabbed your hand, you attacked me again and I had to hold onto your arms so you couldn't claw me up like you were trying."

"What..." Rey glanced back and forth at them. "No..."

Asheville stood, coming over to Dave. "This may just be a temporary loss...these things do happen once in a while. We'll continue working as normal and see whether or not he regains his senses within a couple of days."

"Yeah...yeah, I guess so." Dave sniffed once, glancing over at Rey. "Listen, uh, I got to go take care of a couple things today...will he be all right by himself?"

"Dave...I'm sitting right here..." Rey muttered. "I can hear you."

Dave smiled faintly towards him...again, Rey noticed the visible strain in the expression. "Yeah, yeah, I know...sorry, man." He then glanced at the doctor. "Can we talk outside?"

"Of course. Rey, I will be with you again in a few minutes." The doctor and Dave both stepped out the door, and it was pulled shut behind them as they stepped out.

Rey frowned a little, then got up and made his way over to the door, starting to try and open it, frowning a little when he realized it was locked. He put his ear against the door, listening, but he couldn't hear anything through it but a slight mechanical hum. He stepped back, looking at it again, then went over to the other wall, which had a small window. He leaned up to peer outside, seeing nothing but what looked like the roof of a lower level of the building, and what seemed to be woods beyond that.

"This isn't right..." he muttered to himself. "None of this is right."

How could it be? He _knew_ he could remember Wrestlemania. He could remember wrestling Chavo, Nunzio, Booker, all of them. He could definitely remember Kane.

And yet, here was a doctor and Dave, one of his very closest friends, both telling him that it was all wrong.

It had to be a mistake...some sort of very strange rib...something. It couldn't be the truth.


	4. Chapter 4

Rey crawled back onto the hospital bed and settled back against it, staring up at the ceiling and sighing softly. Dave and Asheville had left the room what felt like half an hour ago, and no one had returned yet...and the door was still locked. He had found a call button for the nurse's station, but he hadn't bothered to push it yet...he doubted that the nurses could explain too much more to him, even if they cared to, which he figured was unlikely. So he'd just been laying back, trying to relax, while he waited for someone to come back in.

Finally, after a few more minutes, the door clicked and came back open, and Asheville entered, carrying a small pill cup and a pitcher, smiling almost warmly. "Sorry about the long delay...there was a bit of a crisis upstairs that I had to see to. One of our other patients opened his window and let a squirrel in and...well, needless to say, things got a bit carried away."

"Funny..." Rey muttered, sitting back up and eyeing the cup. "What's that?"

"Your medication. You were supposed to have it at one but I suppose being an hour late won't hurt you too badly. We'll just adjust your schedule ahead by that much." Asheville held out the cup to him, but Rey didn't take it, still just staring at it.

"And what exactly am I taking, here?"

"Mild doses of haldol and lithium. They help to stablize your behavior." Asheville held out the cup to him, but Rey simply stared at it, not reaching out to take it for a moment...and when he did, he immediately dumped the pills into the cup of water, watching them settle to the bottom.

"I feel fine. I don't understand why you're saying I did all these weird things if I can't remember any of them."

Asheville nodded slightly, retracting the cup and setting it down on the tray table, with the pitcher. He then walked around the bed to the recliner and sat back in it, as Rey turned to watch him. "Rey, you do understand that you are in a mental hospital, do you not?"

"Well, that's what you guys keep telling me...but I feel fine. I have very clear memories, none of them involve this place. So...why should I believe you?"

"Rey, don't you think the fact that you're in a mental hospital should be a clue that maybe you aren't as aware of what's going on as you think you are?" Asheville leaned forward. "Listen, Rey, we're here to help you. We don't want you to have to stay in this...state. But you have to be willing to trust us. We want what's best for you."

"And you have to understand that I don't know who you are!"

"I am your doctor, Rey. As your doctor, getting you well is something that I am very interested in."

"But my doctor is in San Diego!" Rey stood, moving past the doctor and going over to the window, looking outside again. "Where is this?"

"You're at Essex County Hospital Center, in New Jersey. You were catatonic for a while before they transferred you here...we're one of the most advanced hospitals in New England so it was decided that this would be the best place for you."

"Decided by who?"

"Well, your wife...your boss, Mr. McMahon..."

"Angie?" Rey blinked. "Angie put me in here?"

"She felt it was in your best interests. You have had some very severe problems that prevented you from living normal life, either at home or in your place of employment...your wife was very worried about you, as was Mr. McMahon and your coworkers..."

Rey shook his head slightly. "I can't believe that. Angie loves me, she knows...she would never just send me...she'd at least put me somewhere close to home, so I could see my children!"

"Well...to be honest, money was a little bit of a factor. I suppose you've heard that everything costs more in California..."

"So what you're telling me is that I'm in a discount mental health facility."

"No, Rey. We are among the top in the country. We offer the highest level of services for our patients. The facilities in your area are every bit as good, of course, but typically charge much more for the same or lesser capabilities. And while your employer is helping to pay for the services, money is still an unfortunate necessity to consider."

Rey chewed his lip, glancing around the room. "I want to call my wife..."

"I'm afraid that's not possible, Rey, it's-,"

"The fuck it's not possible! I want to talk to my wife and I want to talk to her now!" Rey came back around, looking around the room. "Why isn't there a phone in here?"

"Rey, you can't use-,"

"Shut up and get me a phone! I want to call Angie! I want to talk to my wife and I want to talk to her now!"

"Rey, you are just going to upset your family if you do. Angie calls you regularly but she does not want to have you calling the house and speaking to either of your children until you have recovered enough to not frighten-,"

Rey spun around to face him, all but baring his teeth. "You're lying to me. She would never do that! Angie would never keep me away from my children that way!"

Asheville reached over to touch the call button, speaking into it. "Marcia, I need you to bring another dose of Rey's medicine down to me, please?"

"Yes, Dr. Asheville," the grandmotherly woman's voice came through.

"I'm not taking any medicine..." Rey snarled. "I want to leave. I want to go home right now. You can't keep me from going home. Bring me the papers so I can sign out."

"Rey..." Asheville stood and came around to him. "You cannot check yourself out. Your family wants you to stay here until you are able to function again in normal society, and until I believe that you would be capable, either on your own or through nominal medication, I cannot allow you to leave. You pose a danger to yourself and those around you."

"I'm thinking really hard about posing a threat to you." Rey narrowed his eyes and turned back to the door, grabbing it and starting to wrench at the handle. "I want out of here and I want out right now!"

Asheville sighed quietly, moving back to sit on the edge of the bed, watching silently as Rey continued to wrestle with the doorknob, cursing it in English and Spanish. After a couple of minutes, Rey finally stepped back, panting a little, staring at the door, then turning back to Asheville.

"Are you quite done?" the doctor asked calmly, still just watching him.

"Where's Dave?" Rey grumbled. "I want to talk to him."

"He's left for his shift." The doctor stood, rubbing the small of his back a moment.

"Shift?"

"Yes. He works downstairs for security a few days a week." Asheville studied Rey's confused expression for a moment. "Ah. You don't recall that either, do you?"

"What are you talking about?" Rey shook his head. "He's on Smackdown."

"He was, same as you were. But he...I suppose felt somewhat responsible for you. He wanted to help you in your recovery, and he, well...he left his work with the WWE, until such time as you were recovered. He proved very helpful to us several times...not just with you, but with some of our other, more troublesome patients...so we offered him a position so that he would have a little extra income while he was here with you."

Rey stared up at the doctor. "He...he quit WWE? Because of me?"

Asheville watched the brief play of emotions on the smaller man's face. "Now do you believe me? That things are really as serious as he and I explained to you?" He reached out, putting a hand on Rey's shoulder. "You still need some help, Rey...and we're here to help you."

Rey stared at the doctor, then glanced back at the door as it came open, and Marcia, the nurse, came in a bit hesitantly, holding another cup with two pills in it. "Is everything all right in here, Doctor?"

"Yes...yes, I think it's going to be all right, Marcia..." Asheville said, carefully guiding Rey back over to the bed, handing Marcia the cup of water with the mostly dissolved pills inside. "Go dump this out and get a fresh glass for him, please?"

Marcia nodded and went through a door on the wall, near the exit...one that went to a bathroom. Rey moved to sit on the bed, watching as she poured out the cup of water in the sink, rinsing it out several times, then came back, picking up the pitcher and refilling the glass as Asheville handed Rey the cup with two pills inside. "Here you are, sweetheart," Marcia said warmly, handing him the cup of water. Rey glanced down at the two cups, back up at the doctor and nurse, and finally let out a slow breath, taking the two pills and putting them in his mouth, then gulping them with a few swallows of water.

"There..." Asheville said, smiling approvingly, as he took the empty pill cup and gave it to the nurse, who headed to the door and stepped out. "All right, Rey, I'd say you've had a bit too much excitement today...perhaps we'll go ahead and skip your group session for today and let you just get some rest, how does that sound?"

"I...I guess it sounds all right..." Rey murmured softly, staring down at the doctor's shoes.

Asheville nodded. "All right, then. I have to go finish my rounds for the day, but I'll be back to check in on you. And you can call the nurses whenever you need to, all right?"

Rey nodded mutely, and after a second, Asheville turned and headed for the door. Rey raised his head to watch, and saw that the doctor knocked very lightly at the door before the doorknob seemed to turn, and then he opened it the rest of the way and stepped out. Rey saw there was a guard standing outside, who pulled the door back closed and locked it again as soon as the doctor had exited. He sighed again, finishing off the water that was in the cup in his hand, then setting it aside, moving back and laying back down on the bed, closing his eyes.

This was too much...it was too much to take in. They were telling the truth. He wasn't sure yet that he believed it, but he couldn't see what they had to gain by lying to him. They really were telling the truth. Which, at least, meant that the incident with Kane hadn't really happened. If this were true. It might not be. But was it?

Rey groaned softly, getting the pillow and pulling it over his head. It was too much to think about at once. He felt as though his brain was twirling inside his skull, with a hundred different unanswered questions. He tried hard to just not think...trying to force his mind to go blank. That way he wouldn't have to face what might have been the truth...that maybe he was crazy.


	5. Chapter 5

Rey groaned softly, wincing a little, opening his eyes, blinking. After only a second, he realized he wasn't in the hospital anymore, and he gasped, sitting up quickly, looking around quickly.

It was the basement again.

"Oh God...oh God oh God..." he murmured, seeing he was sitting in the center of the bed, in the dirt-floored basement again. He chewed his lip, starting to reach his hands up, hesitating before looking down, seeing he no longer had the cuffs on his wrists and ankles. He gulped once, then let out a shaky breath, looking down at the jeans and shirt he was wearing, then reaching up, feeling his mask was back in place. "What the hell...?"

Rey turned to look around the room, and blinked when he saw something new...a small television on a wooden cart, with a VCR on the top of it. Rey blinked at it a moment, and as he shifted, his foot touched something, and he looked down to see a VCR tape was sitting on the bed, with a label on the top that simply said "Watch me".

_How much more Alice in Wonderland can this get? _He picked up the tape, studying it, then glancing back up at the TV. He slid off the bed, going over to it and looking a moment, then looking at the back, at where the electrical cord was. He followed it across the dirt floor and to where it disappeared into the wall without going into a plug...it was as though the smooth concrete wall simply swallowed the wire up. He took it in one hand and pulled at it lightly, then let it go when he felt absolutely no give to it.

He looked at the tape in his hand again, frowning. The label was handwritten in neat print, but he didn't recognize the lettering. He turned and looked back at the TV, going over to it and crouching down, looking into the VCR and finding it empty.

_What the hell is going on here? First I'm here, then I'm at the hospital, now I'm here again? What's going on? _Rey chewed his lip, looking up the staircase to the door, and set the tape on top of the TV, heading over to the stairs and starting up them, getting to the door at the top and pounding at it. "Hello? Hello, is anyone out there? Can you hear me?" He pushed at the door, then rammed his shoulder into it once, grunting when it still didn't budge. "Shit. Shit..." He blew out a breath, leaning against the door, listening to that faint metallic humming, the same that it had been before.

_Okay...the door won't open...I don't know where I am again, except that the last time I was attacked by Kane. But at least this time, I'm not tied up. So what next?_

Rey turned and sat on the top step, resting his chin in his hands, staring down at the basement. He thought that maybe if he was silent and still long enough, he would hear movement again, and know where or how to start yelling again. But after what felt like about ten minutes to him, he hadn't heard so much as a creak of a house settling. He sighed, rubbing his face.

"Okay...last time I woke up, I was in a hospital. A mental hospital. And they told me I was having weird hallucinations." Rey frowned a bit. "Maybe this is another hallucination. So...I guess I should just go with it and see what's going to happen." Rey rubbed his temple and headed back down the stairs to the television, picking up the tape, looking at it one more time, then sighing and pushing it into the player, turning on the television at the same time.

For a second, there was just static. Then, a picture flickered into view, of what looked to be a pair of female feet, and after a moment, the view swung back up, and Rey recognized both the Smackdown ring-with an empty arena behind it-and the young boy sitting on the apron.

"Dominik..." he murmured, grinning slightly, watching as his son grinned over at the camera and waved.

"Hi, Mommy!" Dominik said, waving at the camera.

"Hi, baby!" a female voice called back, and Rey smiled a little, recoginizing the sound of his wife Angie's voice...apparently she was the one working the camera.

"Smile for the camera..." a small girl's voice broke in, and the camera swiveled down, showing his little girl, Aalyah, standing next to her mother, hugging a familiar toy...a stuffed teddy bear in a lucha mask that she carried with her everywhere. Rey chuckled when she showed off a big grin for the camera, one of her front teeth obviously missing.

"Mommy, watch me!" Dominik called out, and the camera swung back to the ring, where Dominik stood, reaching up and grabbing the top rope, then pulling himself up and flipping over the top rope, bouncing a moment before landing on his feet in the ring, and running the ropes, bouncing off the bottom two a couple of times as he did.

"Good job, baby, you're doing good!" Angie called, chuckling, as Dominik skidded to his knees in the middle of the ring and threw his hands in the air as in a victory pose. Rey chuckled a bit, settling on the ground to watch, smiling at the sight of his family so happy and playful together.

"Hey, guys!" another voice cut in, and the camera turned to show the Hardys, Matt and Jeff, coming down the ramp. Rey could see the stage and the Titantron behind them, with the screen lit a grayish shade, showing it wasn't programmed yet. That meant all this was probably happening before a Smackdown taping, perhaps in the early afternoon. There were a few techs wandering around in the background, that added more to his guess at the time.

"Hello, Matt, Jeff," Angie said, as Jeff ran straight up to the camera, getting practically in the lens, causing both Angie on the tape, and Rey, observing, to laugh. There was then some shifting around on the screen, some thumps, and then the camera was re-aimed, and Rey smiled when the focus was on Angie, who was smiling and waving to the camera, apparently having let Jeff take it. Rey chuckled, raising his own hand and waving slightly, as though his wife would be able to see him through the screen.

Matt Hardy stepped into the frame, putting an arm around Angie's shoulders and showing a peace sign to the camera, before Dominik's voice broke in. "Matt, Matt, come wrestle me!"

"Ahh, come on, Dominik!" Matt called, looking over at the ring. "I don't need my butt kicked this soon before the show!"

"Oh, go ahead, Matt!" Jeff jeered, the camera angle bouncing a bit. "You can take him!"

Matt smirked, then turned and bolted for the ring, and the camera turned to follow as he dove into the ring and charged Dominik, grabbing the boy up in his arms and spinning him around and around, the boy squealing and laughing at the motion. When they reached a turnbuckle, Matt stopped and put Dominik on the top one to sit, staggering a bit dizzily, laughing as well. "You...you don't use that for a finisher, Dom, okay? That takes too much out of a person."

"Okay, Mattie," Dominik said, grinning from where he was sitting on the turnbuckle. Rey watched as Aalyah ran over to the ring, trying to climb up and into it, and Matt looked over, seeing her and grinning.

"You wanna wrestle, too, Ally?" He came over and knelt down, picking her up and easing her between the ropes and into the ring, raising her up slightly and onto his shoulders. Rey made a face...he wasn't sure exactly how he felt about Matt holding his daughter that way. Still, Matt was a friend of his, he figured it could be worse.

"Go get 'em, big daddy," Jeff's voice came, as he came closer with the camera, apparently climbing up to stand on the apron and film over the ropes.

"Don't you two break that camera!" Angie's voice warned.

"We won't!" Matt called, as he started to spin, more gently this time, and Aalyah giggled as he did. At the same time, Dominik jumped off the turnbuckle and ran for the ropes, bouncing off the bottom two again, then running up behind Matt and pushing him lightly. Matt sold the push like a gunshot, crying out and going down, carefully catching Aalyah and letting her land sitting on his chest. She squealed and immediately rolled into a cover, and Dominik slapped the mat three times.

"All right!" Jeff's voice broke in. "Your winner by pinfall!"

Rey chuckled, watching as Dominik raised Aalyah's hand and paraded her around the ring, to applause from Angie, coming closer to the ring, and Matt rolled onto his front, just watching them, grinning. They all seemed so happy...so content, actually. He wasn't sure when they had filmed this, but the kids didn't look very much older than he remembered. He chuckled as he watched Dominik carefully wrestling around with Ally in the ring, taking great care not to actually harm his little sister. At the same time, Matt walked over to the side of the ring, off the camera, as Jeff apparently crouched and crawled under the rope to get a close-up on the two kids as they laughed and rolled across the mat.

_They seem to be okay_...Rey thought. I_ guess...if this is real_...Rey looked up at the ceiling again, standing and walking past the TV to the stairwell, looking up at the door again. _I've spent enough time, I need to get out of here, find them...figure out what's going on..._

"I'm so glad you're here for me, Matt..."

Rey turned his head, blinking, at the sound of Angie's voice, and he turned and went back to the screen, staring at it. The picture had shifted to one of Matt and Angie standing together, and Rey let his mouth hang open slightly when he realized that Matt was holding both of Angie's hands in his...and Rey blinked at the way the two of them were looking at each other.

"Things lately..." Angie murmured. "I just don't know what the kids and I would have done..."

Matt smiled, bringing her hands up to kiss them lightly. "It's been my pleasure to do it, Angie. I'm glad I've had the chance to be there for you and the kids."

Rey blinked again, moving closer to the TV, staring at it. "A-Angie...what are you doing...?" he murmured.

Angie smiled up at Matt...and then he leaned in, kissing her gently, letting go of one of her hands to cup her face lightly. Rey stared, mouth open, as she tilted her head, leaning slightly against Matt.

"Ewwwww!" two voices broke in, and Matt and Angie broke the kiss to look back at the ring, as the camera swung up towards the ring, where Dominik and Aalyah were laying on the mat, watching them and laughing.

"You two need to learn to behave yourselves..." Matt said, grinning, and he charged over and grabbed up the kids, one under each arm, and spun them around again, causing them to laugh and squeal, as he made his way back over to Angie and leaned over to kiss her again. "What do you say we take the kids and grab some lunch, huh?"

"That sounds good...if someone will give me my camera back!" Angie turned, coming towards the camera, and the focus suddenly shifted to back up the ramp, bouncing, with the sound of Jeff's laughter trailing with it.

Rey stared at the screen, even after it had faded to black, then gone back into static. He moved backwards slowly, as though trying to escape, hitting the edge of the bed and leaning back, sitting on the edge of the bed. He put his hands on his head, staring at the hissing screen of the television.

"Angie...Angie...what are you doing...?" he murmured again. Had she really done that? Did she let Matt kiss her...let him play with their children that way? Why would she do that? He was still here...still alive, still in love. Wasn't she? Why had she done it?

Rey stood, moving just close enough to turn off the TV, then moving back to sit on the bed again. He rubbed his face with his hands, then peered over them at the television set, chewing his lip. Then he scooted back and curled up on the bed, staring at the screen, hugging his knees to his chest. "No...no...Angie...please be a lie...please...please..."


	6. Chapter 6

Rey blinked, opening his eyes, and sat up again, looking around. He was again in the hospital bed, again in his hospital room, the white clothes, without his mask.

"What in the world...?" he muttered, glancing towards the window and seeing it was dark outside. He panted a little, feeling somehow breathless, and laid back in bed, taking measured breaths until he felt somewhat back in control of his faculties. Then he looked over at the nurse button on the arm of the bed, reaching over hesitantly and pushing it. After a moment, an unfamiliar woman's voice responded.

"Yes, how can I help you?"

"Uh...is uh, is uh, Marcia there?" he asked, taking a moment to remember the name of the grandmotherly nurse who he'd already seen.

"Um, let me see," the other woman responded. Rey blew out a breath, waiting for the answer.

Instead, after about a minute, the door to his room clicked and came open, and Marcia stepped in, carrying a large tote bag on her arm, as though it were a purse. "You called for me, dear?" she asked, stepping in and closing the door behind her.

"Yeah...um...I'm sorry, were you going home?"

The nurse chuckled lightly. "In about five minutes. What did you need, sweetheart?"

Rey chewed his lip hesitantly before speaking. "Have...have I been here the whole time?"

Marcia's eyebrows came together slightly, but he couldn't think of the expression as a frown. "What do you mean?"

"Um...I was here before...I was...I um, I mean..." Rey licked his lips slightly, trying to figure out how best to formulate his question. "Have I left the room since you last saw me?"

"Why, no, dear, you've been in here napping the whole time. I checked in on you several times and you were right here in bed. Why do you ask?"

Rey sat up. "I, um...I thought I was somewhere else..." He glanced back at the window. "I was in the basement, where I was when Kane kidnapped me, but I was alone...and there was a TV with a video of my wife and a guy I know, and...my kids and all..." He looked back at Marcia, who was still listening, the frown gone from her face...but now replaced by a sympathetic, almost pitying look.

He didn't like it.

"Sweetheart, I promise...you've been here for the last five hours, fast asleep. Me and the other nurse on duty for this hall each checked on you...I'm sure Dave probably did as well."

Rey nodded some, picking at the blanket slightly. "So...I guess that didn't happen..."

Marcia came closer, reaching out to take Rey's wrist, putting a finger on it and looking at a watch on her other wrist. He looked up at her, but didn't comment as she seemed to be mouthing numbers, apparently counting. She then turned and took the blood pressure cuff off the wall, and he put his arm out again, while she slid it into place and started to squeeze the small ball, watching the gauge on the wall. Rey watched as well, even though he really had no idea how to read the thing, but after a minute, she removed the cuff and replaced it on the wall.

"It was just a bad dream, sweetheart. You're probably just scared and stressed and it's getting to your sleep."

"It...it felt real..."

Marcia stroked his hair slightly, in a way that comforted Rey even as it made him feel like a frightened child. "Poor dear...you've been through a lot. It's all right to have nightmares, sweetheart, but they aren't real."

"I...I guess not, but...but they sure felt real." He hugged his knees against his chest again. "I feel like every time I fall asleep, I wake up somewhere new...but sometimes I can't remember falling asleep..."

"Hmm...giving you a sedative probably wouldn't help that much. Still, it's only about 7, maybe you'll wear yourself out again by the time you're supposed to be asleep again." Marcia checked her watch. "Your dinner should be here in about half an hour, and then Dave will be off work at eight, so that should give you something to do to keep your mind busy and off of what's bothering you."

Rey sighed, shaking his head. "What's bothering me is being here..." He looked up at her again. "Why can't I remember anything? I mean, I remember things and I'm sure they felt right, but this isn't...they didn't...I mean..." He groaned and rubbed his temples. "It's not right...it's just not right, my being here."

"I know how you feel, sweetie...but don't worry. Leonard is working very hard on your case, and we're all rooting for you. You've been making such spectacular advances in your therapy, this is probably just a little slip off the wagon, so to speak. I'm sure things will be clearer soon."

Rey nodded slowly, looking back down at the nurse's shoes. "So...what do I do all day...just...sit in here?"

"Well, most DAYS, you're in therapy sessions, or tests, or talking on the phone to your wife Angie...sometimes Dave will take you to the common room and you'll watch some television...or go down to the PT room and work out a little bit. Evenings are a little quieter, though. There's some people on this floor who need the routine and it's good for you, too. It helps give you some stability."

Rey nodded again. "If...can I get a book or something, then? I mean, I don't...I can do that and stay quiet, you know, without bothering anyone, right?"

Marcia smiled slightly. "Of course, dear...I don't have anything for you tonight, but tomorrow when I come in, I'll bring you some books of mine to read." She winked at him. "I trust you not to try and escape with them."

Rey worked up a weak chuckle, thanking the nurse, and she headed back out of the room, knocking and then stepping out when the doorknob turned for her. He took and let out a long, deep breath, looking around the room again, then slid off the bed, heading over to the door to the bathroom and pushing it open, peering inside. It looked like a standard hospital bathroom, with a toilet and handlebars to pull yourself up with, and a normal shower.

But he noticed that there weren't any of the usual cords one could pull in case of an emergency-only buttons-and the sink was almost flat...it had only the barest slope down towards a inch-wide cylinder, apparently to keep the water draining out without spilling over...and the soap was a nontoxic children's hand sanitizer. Debating, Rey opened the shower door and looked around. It was a sizeable shower, but he was a bit puzzled at the size of the drain...it almost completely bisected the shower floor from front to back and again from side-to-side. After considering a moment, he concluded that it was to keep the drains from being easily clogged and allowing water to pool in the bottom of the shower...making it harder for a person to drown themself. Same for the shallow sink.

The bathroom was almost completely suicide-proofed.

That was an unsettling thought by itself, and Rey quickly shut the door to the shower and stepped back into his room, shuddering a little. He hurried over to the window, probing at it, and found that it was painted mostly shut...he fiddled with it, and managed to get it to open, but only six inches...no further. Enough to let some cool, fresh air in-and he crouched, putting his face to it and breathing the night air deeply-but not enough for anyone to get through it.

Though he realized if he really wanted to, he could have picked up the rolling table and tossed it right through the window. That thought calmed Rey a bit. The room WAS designed to be suicide-proofed, or at least to make it very difficult, but it wasn't set up like that for HIM. He could have hung himself with the sheets on his bed, jumped through the window, anything. So they weren't worried about him doing anything like that.

Though Rey felt his stomach do something of a flip when he realized he was trying to think of ways he could harm himself with his _room_. He quickly squeezed his eyes shut, trying to clear his mind, just focusing on breathing the clean air coming through the window...the air that didn't stink of antiseptic.

After a couple of minutes, he opened his eyes, looking out at the clearing outside his window again, sighing softly, and he stood, reaching up to push the window closed. He turned back to the bed, going and crawling onto it, adjusting it to sit up, and leaned back against it, getting comfortable as he stared up at the ceiling.

Apparently, judging from the obvious care being taken by these people, he couldn't doubt what they were saying anymore. He WAS in a mental hospital, after all. Or a "hospital specializing in psychiatric care" as they had referred to it. So that meant that the odds were, they weren't lying to him about why he was here, either. Which meant that he couldn't trust the memories he had...at least to a degree. It was odd. He felt that he could very clearly..._very_ clearly remember certain things...winning the title at Wrestlemania was one of his most cherished memories. Starting to brawl with Chavo, he could remember that. And waking up in that dirty basement three times...he remembered that.

Except that if they were telling the truth, no he didn't. None of it happened because he had been in this room, or at least in this hospital, almost the entire time. Months of his life were a complete mystery, and they were here to try and help him understand that.

Rey frowned a little. Shouldn't he, if he were really that crazy, be a little more suspicious than this? They were making such a big deal out of his mental state, telling him he wasn't firing mentally, but he felt he had a complete grasp on the situation. They were telling him his memory was shot, and he believed them. The logical assumption was that they were telling the truth.

But if he weren't sane, wouldn't he not believe them? Or was his complete trust a symptom instead? After all, he should be suspicious about these people he didn't recognize, regardless of the location...

"AGHHHH..." Rey growled, grabbing his head and covering his eyes with his palms. "Being crazy is too _hard_!"

"Well, I wouldn't know..." Dave's voice interupted, and Rey looked over, seeing his friend stepping through the door, wearing gray sweat pants and a white shirt, carrying a couple of McDonalds bags and two bottled Sprites, and looking mildly bemused.

"Sorry, Dave..." Rey muttered, sitting up straighter, rubbing his temples. "I guess I'm just still trying to wrap my brain around all this."

Dave smiled, pulling the door closed and coming over to sit on the bed next to him, holding out one of the bags. "Grilled chicken salad with ranch, just like you like it. I figured we could cheat on dinner for tonight."

Rey chuckled slightly, taking the offered soda as well. "Thanks..." He opened the box with the salad in it, starting to pour the dressing on it, while Dave unwrapped a Big Mac, taking a huge bite out of it, watching Rey meticulously prepare his food before finally starting to eat as well.

"I swear, you eat like a bird," Dave murmured through a mouthful of burger, taking his own bottle and gulping.

"I eat healthier, if that's what you mean." He speared a piece of chicken on his fork and chewed slowly, looking down at the bag in front of Dave, on which he was resting his fries. He frowned a little as he considered, looking back up at Dave. "We've done this before..."

Dave looked up at him, blinking a moment, then he managed a slight smile again and nodded. "Yeah...once or twice a month...I bring in some take-out and we eat like this. Usually from the McDonalds down the street."

Rey nodded slightly. "It seems familiar. Really familiar. Like...deja vu." He took another bite of his salad.

"Maybe next time, I can bring in something from the noodle store. You, uh...you really like that place."

They continued to make small talk and eat their meal, and Rey felt a bit of the slight nervousness he'd been experiencing fading away. Dave smiled and laughed and joked along with him, and seemed to be totally at ease. Rey knew that Dave wouldn't do anything to hurt him, he never had. Dave had even left Smackdown to be here with him, to help him out, and watch over him. If Dave was comfortable here, then he could be, too.


	7. Chapter 7

Rey murmured softly when he started to wake up, shifting a bit in bed. He stretched once, then reached up to rub his eyes-hesitating when he felt his mask was back on his face.

"What the-??" He sat up quickly, blinking, and gasped when he saw he was back in the basement.

_Oh God...oh God, this can't be happening. It's another bad dream, it's another nightmare...I shouldn't be here. My brain is tricking me, this is all a trick. _Rey took deep breaths, closing his eyes, trying to calm himself down. _Just relax, Rey. You know what's going on. Your brain is misfiring, you're not here. You're back in the hospital with Dave sleeping right next to your bed, you're safe and sound. Just calm down, remember, focus..._

Rey opened his eyes again, but the room was still the same...red dirt floor, flat concrete walls, and cobwebbed bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. He turned his head to where the TV had been before, but it was gone...there wasn't so much as a track in the dirt. He stood from the bed, moving carefully across the room, and crouched to examine the wall where the cord had been before. This time, though there wasn't even sign that the cord had been...only flat wall, no drilled holes or anything. He ran a hand over it, wincing slightly at the coolness and smoothness. No signs of any kind of fill or anything. The hole, which MUST have been there before for the cord, had simply vanished.

He straightened, looking around a moment, wondering if there was any sort of newness to the room this time around, but before he could consider for too long, he heard creaking footsteps overhead, and looked up towards the ceiling, chewing his lip. Despite knowing who had been here the last time, he still called out. "Hello? Who's up there? Dave? Marcia? Anyone?"

The footsteps continued to move, slowly and heavily, and Rey glanced in the direction they were heading. He chewed his lip a bit, then hurried to the stairs, moving up them and towards the door, hoping that he would be able to get through the door if it came open. He stopped on the second step from the top, watching the door a bit apprehensively, shifting from one foot to the other.

After just a moment, the doorknob on the door rattled slightly, and Rey tensed some, readying himself in case it was someone dangerous. The knob rattled again, but still the door didn't open. Rey chewed his lip, remaining focused, staring at the knob, wondering whether he should try it, to see if it were unlocked, or-

A giant hand clamped over his mouth, and Rey let out an involuntary scream, jumping and trying to jerk away from the grip, but before he could, an arm snaked around his chest, pinning his arms and pulling him back against what felt like a massive torso. Rey thrashed wildly, trying to pull himself free, but when a deeply familiar chuckle came from the being behind him, he froze.

"Well, here you are again, Rey..." Kane's voice rumbled forth. "I was wondering when I would get to have my chance with you again."

Rey grunted and started struggling and kicking fiercely, trying to work himself free, but the stronger, larger man simply hoisted him up, flinging Rey over his shoulder and turning to carry him back down the stairs. "Let me go!" Rey yelled, pounding his fists into Kane's back, trying to pry himself loose. "Put me down, put me down right now! Let go of me!"

Kane simply ignored him, carrying him to the basement floor, towards the bed. Rey yelped when he was flung hard to the bed, bouncing off it from the sheer force, but he used the momentum of it to flip himself backwards, landing on his feet with the bed between him and Kane.

"Oh, what's the matter, little Rey?" Kane asked mockingly, a sneer evident across his face. "Don't you like being here with me? You're practically hurting my feelings."

"Stay away from me, Kane..." Rey shifted his weight slightly, prepared to run if the big man made a move towards him. "Shit...you're not even real...you're not real. This is just some freaky hallucination. I'm probably asleep right now and you're not even real..."

"If I'm not real, Rey, then I can't hurt you, can I?" Kane smirked, starting to saunter around the bed towards him. When Rey jumped back onto the bed, prepared to run back the other way, Kane merely laughed. "If I'm not real, you wouldn't be afraid of me."

"I'm not afraid of you..." Rey growled, raising his fists. "Not while I can still fight."

"Oh, is that the case, then?" Kane laughed again. "Well, if you're not scared, then I'm not doing my job. Maybe you shouldn't be able to fight, then." Kane seemed to narrow his eyes, and he swept a hand at Rey as though he were flinging something towards him.

"What are you AGHHH!!" Rey collapsed forward on his hands and knees on the bed at a sudden searing pain in his back, as though he'd been hit with a bat. He grunted some, quickly rolling back to his feet, rubbing one arm across his back as best he could, but he couldn't detect any damage other than a bit of soreness. Rey whipped around, looking for the source of the attack, but he saw nothing but the blank wall. He looked back at Kane in confusion, but he saw that the big man was sitting on the bed, arms folded, just watching him.

"Go ahead and run, Rey..." Kane said with a smirk. "I'll give you a head start."

Rey winced slightly, growling. "I'm not running from you!" He raised his fists again, running and jumping off the bed, kicking Kane square in the chest with both feet, knocking him backwards and off the bed, into the dirt. Rey started to raise to his feet, but as he stood, his knees suddenly buckled under him, sending him back to all fours on the bed. He gasped, trying again to get up, but before he could, his arms slipped out from under him, and he fell flat against the bed, eyes widening. He tried again to get up, but it was as though his body had suddenly stopped registering his commands...his arms and legs were completely unresponsive. It was hard just to draw in a breath. Rey gasped, trying to even raise his head, a spike of terror rising when even that simple act eluded him.

"Should've run, little Rey..." Kane's voice growled from somewhere above him, but Rey could barely get his eyes to focus in that direction...all he could see was the large man's body near him. He felt giant hands on his waist, and he was flung onto his back on the bed, limbs splaying limply, as Kane smirked down at him.

_What did you do to me??_ Rey wanted to demand, but nothing to that effect came from his mouth...the only sense that anything had even been done was a faint whine in his throat, his lips slightly parted but not closing or opening to follow his mental bidding.

"I paralyzed you," Kane chuckled, crawling onto the bed, hovering over Rey, staring down at him. "Isn't it obvious? You said that you weren't afraid of me while you could still fight. Well..." Kane gripped Rey's wrist, raising his arm slightly, then releasing it, watching it drop lifelessly to the blanket. "Now, you can't fight. Are you afraid of me, now, little Rey?"

_No...hell no! _Rey wanted to shout, but again, all he could manage was some sound in his throat. But even at the thought, he knew Kane wouldn't believe him...it was a struggle just to get air into his lungs, he couldn't move or fight...he was completely at the giant's mercy.

_HOW did he do this to me??_

Kane smirked again. "It's for me to know and you to find out, Rey. But I'll just say...I think I like you like this. Completely...utterly helpless." Kane reached over, picking up Rey's arm and watching it flop back down again. "Yes...if this is my job for eternity, I think I will enjoy it immensely."

_This isn't real_...Rey thought frantically, trying to fight, to squirm away, to do ANYTHING. _This isn't real, it's a dream, a hallucination, that's the only explanation, the only way he could know, he could do this, he's not real, this is all a dream, this is a dream, a DREAM..._

"You're not dreaming, Rey..." Kane said again, leaning down closer, near enough that Rey could feel the man's hot breath against his face. "This is all very, very real. Everything that you're feeling is real, everything I DO to you is real. Everything I'm GOING to do to you is real." Kane suddenly grabbed Rey's face and pulled him up so that they were sitting, almost nose to nose. "And there's not a damn thing you could ever do to stop me."

Rey managed another weak groan, but then he mentally shrieked when Kane suddenly crushed their mouths together, kissing Rey so hard that he felt his own lip suddenly split. He wanted to scream, to kick and punch and fight, to grab at the wound and try to stop the blood, but he couldn't do anything, not even close his eyes to keep from staring into Kane's...that dead, glaring white eye staring back at him, filled with...something dangerous. Something like hate, fury, but at the same time...with a malicious twinkle that said that Kane would take great pleasure in hurting him.

Rey was suddenly flung back against the bed, and he stared at the beast standing over him, feeling blood running down his face from his injured lip. Kane reached up and wiped at his own mouth, examining the red stains on his palm, grinning slightly at the sight. "Get used to this sight, Rey..." Kane said, reaching down and wiping up another handful of the blood, smearing it across Rey's face. "Get used to the feeling of pain and helplessness, get used to it all. Because this is your damnation, little Rey. You and I will be seeing each other this way forever."


	8. Chapter 8

Rey sat up in bed quickly, gasping and grabbing at his mouth, his breath coming in short, fast gasps. "No...NO!"

He heard someone murmur beside him, and sensed a large form pressing close, and Rey shrieked, throwing an elbow back as hard as he could, feeling it make solid connection and knocking his captor back. Rey felt a deep panic rear into the back of his mind, and he swung around, screaming and flailing against the giant terror, clawing, punching, slapping, anything he could do to drive the giant away. "Don't TOUCH ME!!" he screamed, driving his fists into Kane's head over and over, finally sitting up on the edge of the bed and kicking him hard, not even watching to see where he landed before starting to bolt for the exit-but he felt a hand snatch his ankle and yank his legs out from under him, and he grunted when he hit the ground roughly, his teeth clacking together blindingly hard.

"Rey, stop it!" a voice snarled deeply, but he screamed again, trying to kick his way free, scrabbling at the floor to gain any purchase he could, desperate to make his escape before Kane could paralyze him again and make good on his threats of pain and torture...but Rey didn't have the strength to yank away, and there was swiftly a huge weight on his back, grabbing and clutching hard at his wrists.

"LET ME GO, LET ME GO!!" he cried, squirming desperately from where he lay, but the grip on his arms tightened, and he was drawn up and backwards into a sitting position, his hands pulled so his arms were folded across his chest and Kane's across them, still clasping him tightly, his back pressed against a solid chest. Rey sobbed and struggled, trying to work himself loose. "LET GO!!"

"Rey, stop! Stop it right now!" Kane wrapped his legs around Rey from behind, crossing them in such a way as to pin Rey's kicking legs to the floor.

"NOOOO!!" Rey howled, feeling another surge of power come with the new terror, thrashing back and forth, trying to free his arms or get to his feet, either to fight or to escape, anything, anything else, to get away, anywhere but here anyone but Kane, anything he could do-

"REY!!" He felt himself being abruptly shaken hard from side to side, and he grunted when he felt as though he were being whiplashed, ceasing his struggles to try and stabilize himself. It was in that moment that Rey suddenly became aware of the feeling of cool air on his maskless face...the chill of floor tile coming through his thin pajamas and bare feet. He blinked rapidly, glancing around, and suddenly realized that he was sitting on the floor of his hospital room. Another millisecond's thought brought to him the true identity of the man behind him.

"D-Dave...?" he asked softly, still shivering slightly even with the dawning realization of relative safety, courses of adrenaline still rushing through him.

"You calm? You know where you are...?" the familiar gentle voice spoke from behind him, but even with the good will intended, Rey was abruptly and painfully aware of Batista's massive hands, still locked in death grips around Rey's wrists, all but grinding the bones.

"Owwww ow ow ow...ow, Dave, ow...ow, let go, it hurts..." he whimpered, wriggling slightly, trying to ease the pain somewhat.

"If I do, are you gonna attack me again?" Dave muttered, still hanging on tightly.

"No...ow...ow, no, no...I know where I am...ow, please...let go..."

Batista hesitated for just a moment, then slowly loosened his grip on Rey, easing the pressure and pain, finally releasing them, but keeping his arms around Rey's chest and his legs on top of Rey's, still hanging on to him. "What happened? One second you were fast asleep and the next you were trying to bust my head open..."

"I wasn't asleep...was I?" Rey asked softly. "Kane...Kane had me...he took me away...to the basement, to that basement again...he was gonna hurt me, real bad...I didn't want to...I couldn't..."

"Rey..." Dave sighed deeply, his hold on Rey not lessening, but becoming almost more of an embrace than a restraint. "You weren't anywhere, I promise...you were here the whole time, asleep. I was just about to wake you up for breakfast when you snapped. You've been here the entire night...I was right here with you the whole time, just like I always am."

"You're wrong..." Rey said, shaking his head. "Dave, you're wrong, I know...I was there, he...I was in the basement, he came in behind me and he grabbed me, and I fought him, I fought, but he did something, he paralyzed me somehow, I couldn't fight him, I couldn't do ANYTHING, and he threw me around and then he...God, he KISSED me, he busted my damn lip open, it was so hard...he kept talking about how much he wants to hurt me..."

He sensed a hesitation, but then he felt Dave's legs move away, and the big man turned Rey, and for the first clear moment that morning, Rey looked up into his face. It was definitely Dave...not Kane. Not a giant monster, just Dave...who seemed to have a slowly swelling eye and a row of bloody scratches marring his cheek. Rey winced slightly at the sudden realization that in his haste to drive back Kane, he'd just done a fair job of mauling one of his best friends.

"Rey...your lip isn't busted. You're fine."

Rey blinked, shaking his head. "What? But Dave, he did, I remember...there was so much blood I thought..." Rey's hand had moved towards his mouth as he spoke, and his voice trailed off when his fingertips brushed his upper lip...and there was no pain. He couldn't feel a cut or anything but smooth skin. "But he...I was there and he did..."

Batista sighed again, finally getting to his feet and pulling Rey up as well, physically lifting him again and putting him back on the bed. "You weren't anywhere, Rey. You were right here, asleep, all night. You had a nightmare. A pretty fucking bad one, just guessing from the reaction here."

Rey shook his head slowly, and he was suddenly aware of a weak beeping sound somewhere behind him, and he turned to see a red light on the wall behind his bed flashing. Batista stepped over and pushed a button under it, and a somewhat concerned female voice came through the intercom. "Dave? Dave, is everything all right in there? You didn't make your morning check-in."

"It's fine now, Katie..." he muttered softly. "But is Leonard in yet?"

"He's running a little late, but he should be in the office in about ten minutes..." the nervous voice replied.

"Okay, listen, so long as no one catches on fire beforehand, send him down to Rey Mysterio's room as soon as he gets here, all right? I think I need to talk to him. It's not an emergency, but I think it does need attention as soon as possible." He paused a second, then spoke again. "And have him bring an ice pack, a first aid kit, and some Tylenol."

"Oh...okay, Dave, um, I'll do that." Dave removed his finger from the button, and the red light winked out. The larger man then rubbed at his face, wincing, and walked back around the bed and headed towards the door to the bathroom.

"I...Dave, I'm sorry...I didn't mean to hurt you..." Rey said, sliding off the edge of the bed and following him, standing in the doorway as Dave stood over the shallow sink and turned on the warm water, starting to try and wash his face. "I thought you were Kane and I didn't..."

"I know you didn't mean it, Rey..." Dave murmured, scooping up a double handful of water and splashing it on his face.

Rey chewed his lip a bit, watching. "Have I done this before...?"

"Not precisely like that, no..." Dave finally shut off the water and pulled up his shirt to wipe at his face slightly. "But it's not the first time you've gotten violent. But those episodes are few and very far between. You haven't attacked anyone in, like, weeks now. Maybe even months. I'll have to get your chart." He looked over the collar of his shirt as he continued drying his face, almost talking to himself. "But at least before, you knew WHO you were going after, so this is something different, I suppose."

Rey shook his head some, stepping to Batista's side. "Dave, I would never attack you like that...I thought that you were Kane, I just...I didn't want him to hurt me anymore..."

"But he hasn't hurt you, Rey," Dave shot back, looking down at him, frustration seemingly evident on his face. "How could he? He's probably a thousand miles away from here as we speak. He's not here. Even if he was and even if he did want to hurt you, he wouldn't get you out of this room. I wouldn't let him put his hands on you. Even if it wasn't my job-" he finally lowered his shirt, brushing at it and scowling at a few small red stains in the fabric "-you're my friend and I'm here to protect you. Nobody's gonna be hurting you on my watch." Dave reached down, carefully taking hold of Rey's arm and guiding him back into the room, walking him over to the bed, waiting for Rey to sit down before sitting next to him, putting a hand to his eye and sighing slightly.

"I'm sorry..." Rey whispered, staring down at his feet. "It just seemed like it was so real...even now, I...I'm having a hard time believing that I could have dreamed something so...bad..."

Dave sighed again, but he reached over, taking Rey's hand in his and squeezing it very gently. "But you do realize that it was a dream, don't you?"

Rey looked up at him and considered a moment, unsure whether he should flat out agree with that statement or admit that he had a bit of doubt. But a quick mental shake and reminder of where he was told him that it would be best to try and be as honest as he could. "I'm...I'm about 98 sure, Dave. I mean, I know...I know it was probably a dream, more likely, it almost certainly was, but...I'm not completely convinced...it was just so...SO real..."

Dave nodded again. "I know...I know, man, and that's okay...maybe once you've had a little time to process and talked to Dr. Asheville, then you'll realize it all the way."

Rey nodded a bit, glancing back down at the floor. "Yeah...yeah, you're right...I'm sure I will. I just need to...I just need to talk to the doctor and I'll know that everything is okay."


	9. Chapter 9

Rey leaned back against the bed, chewing his lip as he watched Dr. Asheville. The man was listening to Dave describe the morning's events, and making notes on a clipboard, both of them apparently oblivious to Rey's proximity. At this point, though, he was getting way too used to that.

"...and he seems perfectly coherent now," Dave was finishing up. "But man, for a couple minutes there, I don't think he knew which way was up."

"I see..." Asheville replied, making another note. "All right, thank you, Dave. Perhaps you'd like to go and clean..." Asheville gestured vaguely to his own face, in the same area as the scratches Dave was sporting from Rey.

"Yeah...yeah. You sure? I can stay..."

"No, no...I don't think you need to. You've done just fine already." The doctor smiled thinly, and Dave turned to Rey, nodding with what he must have thought was a reassuring smile, but which looked to Rey as though it were on the brink of exhaustion. Rey smiled back, hoping that his was a little bit less shaky than Dave's, and he watched his friend go over to the door and knock lightly, allowing it to be unlocked before opening it and stepping out.

"All right, Rey..." Asheville said, stepping closer and setting the chart down just out of Rey's line of sight, reaching for the blood pressure machine. "I believe you know the standard procedure for this."

"I could probably do it myself at this point," Rey muttered, holding out his arm, watching as the doctor strapped the arm band around and began squeezing the small balloon, watching the gauge on the wall. "Do we really have to do this every time? I mean, blood pressure isn't my problem if my brain's what's messed up, is it?"

"It could be a symptom," the doctor replied. "If there was some sort of small intercranial bleed, it could cause your blood pressure to drop in addition to many of your other behaviors."

"But if my brain is bleeding, then wouldn't someone have noticed by now?" Rey asked, raising an eyebrow. "I mean, within a year, you'd think something like that would be apparent."

"If it were a substantional bleed, then yes, we would have caught it by now. It's highly unlikely to be the problem, however, we can't rule it out at any point. Perhaps there is a swollen vein that is putting pressure on a particular spot in your head, and if it were to start to leak, the blood pressure check would catch that. Although if that were the case, it's far more likely that you would display some sort of other symptoms first..." Asheville finished with the gauge, then removed the band from Rey's arm. "In all honesty, it's just a way for us to cover our bases. If by some act of God we could have discovered the cause of your illness through a blood pressure check and we had not performed one, it would be our liability."

"So, it's just a minute a visit spent protecting yourselves from the lawsuit fairy..." Rey muttered, watching as the doctor hung up the cuff.

"I suppose you could say that," Asheville replied with a wry smile, picking up the chart and making a note on it, again setting it down so that Rey couldn't see it. "But in this case, we're also making sure you weren't damaged during the altercation this morning."

Rey sighed slightly. "I really am sorry. I just...I was so sure that Kane...I was certain all that had happened."

"And what about now?"

Rey shrugged slightly, looking down and picking at an imaginary speck on the pants of his pajamas. "I don't know. It was just so REAL."

"But you do see that it wasn't real, don't you, Rey?" Leonard sat on the end of the bed, watching him carefully. "You can see you're uninjured, that you're still here. Dave was here with you the whole night, we were watching this hallway, no one came in or out of any of these rooms save for our nurses. In fact, if you like, I could have this Kane fellow looked up and you would know that last night, he wasn't within a hundred miles of the hospital. He couldn't have possibly hurt you."

Rey sighed softly, leaning back and rubbing his head somewhat. "Why can't I remember this? I mean, I can't remember being in this hospital, the first thing I can remember is being in that dirty basement with Kane...and if I've been here so long, why can't I remember any of it?"

Asheville sighed slightly, reaching over to pat his shoulder. "Unfortunately, Rey, if we could tell you why, you wouldn't be here. The problem we have is that we can't figure out why you're having these blackouts, and why you're constantly substituting new memories that never occured. And now, in the last day, you've begun displaying symptoms of greater and greater delusions, of...seeming nightmare worlds. It almost seems as though you're getting worse."

"Then...what do we do now?"

The doctor picked up the chart again, studying it a moment. "Well, you're scheduled for a therapy session today, to see if there's any psychological root to your problems. In addition to that, I'm going to order new scans of your brain...see if anything has changed since your last mappings. If there's no conclusions from those, then I'll start looking into some other techniques."

"So what do I do now?"

"Well, for now...I'll have your breakfast sent in, and whenever I've cleared a space for you to come down and receive a CAT and an MRI, I'll have a couple of orderlies come and bring you down for those. In the meantime...try to relax and...focus on better things."

Rey made a bit of a face, but tried to keep the annoyance out of his voice. "There's nothing else I can be doing with my time? I just have to sit in this room by myself and not do anything? Isn't that counterproductive, I mean...shouldn't I have something to distract myself with?"

"The thing is, Rey, that your brain is distracting itself plenty without any sort of outward stimulus. We are hoping that by removing as much environment as we can, we can study what it is that you're fixating on and hopefully diagnose the problem that way. But, if the boredom is too much, then we can see about having some books or something of that nature brought in for you."

"I wish you would...I mean, being in here with nothing else to think about but what's wrong with my rotten head is driving me a little crazy...pun not intended..."

Asheville smiled faintly and stood. "Then I'll have some materials brought for you. In the meantime, your breakfast will be in very shortly, and you should try to eat as much as possible. If I can arrange all the tests I want, it's going to be a very busy day."

Rey nodded a bit, leaning back and watching as Asheville gathered up the charts and took them out of the room with him, the door pulling closed behind him. Rey reached up, rubbing his eyes a little, then turned and moved over to the window, looking out across the landscape, chewing his lip as he studied the trees blowing in an apparent breeze. He reached down, pushing open the window a bit again, and knelt in front of the window, closing his eyes and again just enjoying the scent of the fresh air. He opened his eyes after a moment, then shifted his position a bit, folding his hands in front of himself and lowering his head slightly.

_Dear God...I don't know what's happening to me right now. I don't understand it, I can't get a grasp of the situation. I want to be able to get better...to find out what's wrong with me, and to get well so I can go back home to my family. Please guide me through this, and please help my doctors to be able to find what's wrong and help me. Amen._

Rey let out a long breath, then opened his eyes, taking another deep breath before standing and pushing the window closed again, turning and going back over to the bed, crawling onto it and laying down on his front, putting his face in the pillow and just waiting on the nurse to come in.


	10. Chapter 10

Rey stirred the oatmeal in his bowl silently, making a face at the consistency of the substance, but finally spooning up a small amount and trying it. It wasn't too bad...not exactly what one would consider high quality, but at least not nauseating. He picked up the bowl and ate a little more, studying the tray in front of him as he did. The meal he'd been brought a few minutes earlier was typical hospital fare...the lumpy oatmeal, toast with a couple different flavors of jelly, milk, juice, and a cup of what he assumed to be peaches. It wasn't the first time he'd ever eaten institutional breakfast and, unless there were some kind of miraculous happening within the next day, it wouldn't be his last, either.

While he ate, Rey turned his eyes down to the white tile floor, wincing slightly at the few small spots of blood on the ground in front of the bathroom door, where Dave had bled after the fight. He figured a janitor would be along at some point during the day to clean it up...until then, it served as a visual aid of the fact that things in his life had gone wrong.

__

Of all the ways I thought I could've ended up in this business, getting driven insane by losing a match wasn't way up on the list...

he mused, rolling up the toast and dipping it into the small tub of grape jelly, nibbling at it absently. _I suppose that wasn't the only factor...so much happened in that period of time, I guess it's kind of amazing that I'm the only one who lost it._

He sighed softly as he thought about what his dear friend Eddie would have said about this situation. Probably something a little bit on the disparaging side, if he were going to be honest about it. Eddie had always been a little too fast-witted for his mouth to keep up with...among other things. For all his flaws and for all the hell they'd put each other through, though...Rey wished he could pick up a phone and call his old friend now.

Calling anyone would have been a joy, though. Even with Dave's presence, Rey was feeling a strange sort of unease with this place. Despite being told the date by Dave the previous day, he still felt a little out of sorts. He had no frame of reference beyond what he'd been told, and that still threw him off a little, made things seem somehow more sinister than they were. At least he did know it was morning from looking outside his window.

He finished off everything on the tray in silence, not able to even hear any motion in the hallway outside his door, and pushed aside the rolling table, scooting off to sit on the edge of the bed, swinging his legs a moment, then hopping onto the floor, walking over to the bathroom door, stepping carefully over the bit of blood, and going to the sink, turning on the water and washing his hands briefly, glancing around the bathroom a moment and frowning when he wasn't able to locate a toothbrush immediately. He considered that for a moment, then headed back into his room, going over to the panel at the head of his bed, hesitating a second before reaching out to push the small red button.

After a few seconds, a somewhat harried-sounding male came onto the line. "Yes?"

"Um...this is, uh, Rey...um, I was wondering if I could get a toothbrush or something...?" He chewed his lip some, not sure why he felt nervous about communicating directly with the nurses' station. Probably just the unfamiliarity of the situation.

"Oh...oh, oh, right, right...sorry, Mr. Mysterio, we'll have one sent right away."

"Uh, thank you..." Rey replied, blinking a moment, then shrugging and stepping away, sitting back on the bed and squirming a bit, brushing at his pajama top a little and frowning when he saw that there was a little bit of a brownish stain at the bottom of it...probably also blood. He shook his head slightly, looking back up at the door as it started to come open, and a young man with a mop of frizzy ginger hair stepped in, holding a small plastic tray with several items wrapped in plastic bags.

"Here you are, sir, sorry we forgot to get those to you this morning."

"No problem, man. It has kind of been a weird morning, I guess." Rey took the tray from the young man, watching as he scurried back to the door and knocked almost frantically, shooting out the door the instant it opened a crack. Rey blinked after him for a moment, then shook his head and turned slightly to set the tray down, going through the items inside. No surprises from this either...a plain white toothbrush, a tube of toothpaste, some shampoo and deoderant, and a comb. Rey chuckled quietly as he reached up to touch his buzzed-short hair, setting the comb on the rolling table and picking up the rest of the items, heading back into the bathroom with them. He stepped inside and set the tray down on the floor, then turned his gaze to the shower. He barely even thought before reaching down to pull off the top and step out of his bottoms, setting them aside since he didn't have a clean pair just yet. He took the tiny shampoo bottle out of the tray and stepped into the shower, reaching out to slide the small knob to the side marked for hot water.

It took him a couple of minutes to get the temperature right, but finally he stepped back into the stream and tilted his head back, enjoying the feel of the heat and steam around him. He just stood for a moment, letting his mind go blank and just feeling, thinking that if there were only the scent of Angie's pumpkin candles and the sounds of his children playing downstairs, that he could be home right then. Finally though, he let out a sigh and stepped back, pouring a little of the thin shampoo into his hand and scrubbing at his hair, using a little more to wash himself off, wincing as he suddenly realized how sore his arms were after being held down by Dave that morning. He turned his arms over and probed each of them slightly, seeing that there were already slight bruises forming.

__

Well, I guess it's my own fault for overreacting to a bad dream like some little kid or something. I mean, honestly, what the hell could I have been thinking? Kane paralyzing me with a wave of his hand, reading my mind...that's completely ridiculous. He's not a MONSTER, for God's sakes. ...okay, well, he IS a monster, but he's not THAT kind of monster. About the worst he could do would be to kick my ass in the parking lot or something like that.

Rey shook his head again as he tilted his head back into the spray, closing his eyes, then stepping forward and turning off the water, wiping some of the beads of water away from his arms and front and stepping over to the sink, giving the bathroom a cursory examination for any towels, but figuring correctly that there were none about. Whoever did the stocking and cleaning in this hospital must have either been new or needed to be fired immediately. Rey crouched down to the tray and took out the toothbrush, shedding it of it's plastic wrapper and leaving it behind in the tray, opening up the toothpaste and squeezing some onto the brush, then leaning over the sink and starting to scrub at his teeth, making a face. His gums felt a bit more sensitive than usual, as though he were brushing too hard, but that was probably due to the cheap hospital toothpaste. Maybe he could see about getting Dave to bring him something better.

"Hello?" There was a faint knock on the door, from a male voice he didn't recognize. "Mr. Mysterio, are you in there?"

Rey quickly spit into the sink. "Yeah, gimme a minute!" He turned on the water and cupped his hands together under the stream, gathering some and using it to rinse his mouth, repeating the process twice before turning off the water and hurriedly pulling his clothing back on, feeling grateful he was already mostly dried off. He then stepped over and opened the door again, looking out, and seeing another male nurse standing there, this one a black man with a shaved head. "Hi..."

"Hi, Mr. Mysterio. I've got you a change of clothes here..." the man said, holding out a set of folded white clothing to him.

"Oh, great...thank you..." Rey said, taking the clothes and starting to move back into the bathroom.

"And once you're changed, I'm going to be taking you down to the scan room for an MRI. Dr. Asheville was able to shift a few things around to get you in already."

"Wow. He must be good at what he does, then." Rey nodded again, then retreated behind the bathroom door, setting the clothes down and stripping out of his dirty ones again, pulling on the fresh outfit. It was exactly the same as the other one, but at least this one was clean, so that was a step in the right direction. He hesitated a minute, then opened the door again. "What should I do with the dirty ones?"

"Oh, just leave them, the cleaning crew will probably come through while you're out."

Rey nodded. "Could you have them bring some towels up, too? I didn't have any this morning."

The man nodded quickly. "Yeah, we'll make sure they do that. All right..." He stepped back to let Rey come in, and went over to the door, where a wheelchair with a seatbelt was waiting. "Right this way, sir."

"Do I need that?" Rey asked, raising an eyebrow. "I mean, there's nothing wrong with my legs."

"Just standard hospital procedure, Mr. Mysterio. We have some patients who tend to run off if we aren't careful with them, so everyone is transferred from their rooms this way."

Rey kept his eyebrow up at that statement, but moved over and hesitantly moved to sit down, shifting a bit uncomfortably in the seat. The nurse stepped around and leaned down, loosely fastening the seatbelt over his lap, then stepped back around and gripped the handles. "All right, Mr. Mysterio, we're on our way."

"Just call me Rey, man, it's all good." Rey gripped the armrests lightly as he was turned and pulled backwards as the nurse knocked at the door, and it came open, and the two of them headed out into the hallway for what seemed to Rey to be the first time.


	11. Chapter 11

Rey looked around at the hallway around him as the door slid shut behind him. For some reason, he almost felt surprised at the fact that the hallway seemed rather typical of a hospital hallway...white tiled floor, pale yellow walls with wooden handles built in at the right height, and a plain white ceiling. He somehow expected a "hospital specializing in psychiatric care" to seem somewhat...more than this.

"So, what's your name?" he asked, glancing back up at the man pushing the wheelchair.

"What? Oh...oh, right, I forgot, I'm Keith Darden."

"Forgot?"

"Well...I'm not your usual caretaker...Marcia's working late shifts this week...I just forgot about your...memory issues acting up again."

"Oh..." Rey leaned back, looking around at the hallways again. It seemed as though this floor of the hospital was shaped like a plus sign, with his room about three quarters of the way down this particular arm and the nurses' station set up in the middle. He could see a couple of young women working behind it, but oddly enough, no other patients or people in the hallways as there would almost always be in a regular hospital. He looked at a few of the doors they passed, and they all appeared to be the same solid forms as his was. The dull silver doorknobs had small button locks, and there were also more heavy-duty bolts on the lower ends of the doors, fastening them to the frame. He inwardly grimaced at the thought that he himself had spent so much time behind one of those.

The nurse turned him when they reached the center of the plus, into the right wing, and Rey saw the familiar sight-so far as sights within a hospital went-of a bank of elevators about halfway down them. Keith pushed the chair in that direction, past more of the solid and locked doors.

"So, um...where's the MRI machine?" Rey asked, turning his head back towards the nurse again.

"Down on the second floor. The PT stuff is down there, too, and the therapy rooms. So you'll actually probably be down here for a while today, getting all this stuff done."

"Well...that's progress, right? I mean, every little bit counts..."

"Well, you've had these tests done before, but obviously something changed in the last couple of days. So maybe the doctors will be able to notice something different between then and now and that can lead to a proper diagnosis for you."

"And then I can go home, I guess, right?"

"Probably so, yeah. Can't imagine they'd keep you if there weren't anything wrong."

Rey leaned back again in the chair as Keith pushed him closer and reached out to hit the down button, stepping back and waiting for it to arrive. Rey chewed his lip as he looked up at the lighted numbers over the doors...apparently there were eight floors to the hospital. He watched as the lights went from 3, up to 6, and stopped there as the doors opened. So he guessed he was on the sixth floor. Keith got the chair and turned them, backing into the elevator and pulling Rey in with him, reaching out to touch the button for the second floor as they entered.

"Can I ask you a question?" Rey asked, glancing back over his shoulder at the nurse.

"Sure, what's on your mind?"

"Dr. Asheville said that sometimes my wife calls here to talk to me. When does that happen?"

"About once a week, I think. Friday nights, usually."

"Oh." Rey tilted his head slightly. "And, um...what...day is it today?"

"Today's Wednesday, so it's a couple more days yet. But don't worry, man, the doctors let you stay on the phone as long as you want. It'll be a good time."

Rey nodded and leaned back again, considering. He wondered whether he'd spent any of the other calls asking Angie to come and check him out of this hospital. He knew he was already thinking about it this time, even though he almost felt like he could understand why she wanted him to be in this hospital even if it was all the way across the country. The thing was, he just didn't FEEL like he belonged here. He could tell honestly that he needed the help, but at the same time, he felt in the pit of his stomach that it was wrong for him to be.

Maybe that was just part of the problem, though.

Rey chewed his lip a little as he settled back against the table, looking a little apprehensively towards the MRI machine he was about to be slid into. He'd had a few of them in his time, but most of the times they had been the more open ones. This was one of the older-styled versions that was a large tube that he was going to be almost entirely pulled into. He wasn't looking forward to it.

"Now just remember..." the tech's voice came over a nearby intercom, as Rey glanced towards the window where he could see the man in a labcoat working the controls for the machine. "You have to lay as still as possible. If it helps you to close your eyes, go ahead, but moving around too much will skew the results and we'll have to start over. It'll be over a lot quicker if you just stay still."

"All right..." Rey shifted a bit where he was laying to get comfortable. "Okay...I'm ready."

"Okay, here we go."

Rey turned his eyes up to the ceiling, feeling a slight jolt as the table he was on started to retract, and his gaze was slowly covered by the smooth metal innards of the MRI machine. He winced some at how near everything was to him. He would barely be able to get his hands over his face. He took a deep breath, then did as the doctor had suggested and closed his eyes, wincing at the sound of the machine whirring and working around him.

He stayed as still as he could manage, trying to pretend he wasn't aware of how close in everything around him was. He spent a little while trying to play some mental games, but trying to remember all the words to English songs and translate them into Spanish lost it's appeal pretty quickly, and he couldn't think of any games that one could play alone for a very long period of time. He wasn't sure how long he would be in here, though. He opened his eyes, staring up at the far-too-near surface of the machine.

"Rey?"

He almost flinched at the sudden intrusion of sound over the intercom. "Yes?"

"How are you doing in there?"

"I'm all right...how much longer is this going to take?"

"Just a little while longer. You're doing great."

_Yeah, feeling real great, sure thing._ Rey rolled his eyes slightly. _Nothing like being shoved in a coffin with magnets_.

"Rey...?"

Rey sighed softly. "Yes?" There was no answer, and he frowned faintly. "Yes, what is it? What did you need to know?" There was still no answer, and Rey hesitated a bit, not wanting to move around too much and foul up the scan, but curious as to what was going on. "Hello? Can you guys hear me? What's going on?"

There was just silence, and Rey stared up at the top of the MRI machine, feeling a bit more uneasy. He glanced downwards as far as he could without moving his head, but still couldn't see anything but the metal walls. He started to move to scoot out of the machine, but stopped before he did, torn between getting relief from the growing nervousness from the close confinement and general spookiness and wanting the doctors to be able to finish their work.

Just when he started to think he couldn't stand it another second, there was another slight jolt under him, and the lab tech's voice came back over the intercom. "Okay, Rey, that's good. We're all done here."

"Gracias Dios..." he muttered, not waiting on the machine to get him all the way out before starting to scoot and squirm his way out along with it, hopping off the table and away from the machine as fast as he could.

The door from the control room came open, and Keith came out, pulling the wheelchair behind him. "Sorry about that, man. The intercom shut down for a second. You all right?"

"I'm better now that that's over with. Here's hoping that's the last one of those for a while." Rey shifted his weight a bit from one leg to the other, working a faint bit of stiffness out of them. "Now what?"

"Next is the CAT scan in the next lab. Dr. Asheville doesn't want to risk missing anything so you're getting a full battery of tests while he can get you in for them."

Rey shook his head a little as he sat back in the chair and let Keith buckle him in again. "Just the perfect way to spend a day...crawling in and out of claustrophobic spaces all in the name of weird science."

He and the nurse shared a chuckle at that, even as they started to head out of the room. Rey glanced over his shoulder at the window to the control room, seeing a couple of techs were moving around in there, working, presumably on his data. He mentally wished them luck, then sat back again, getting comfortable as they moved on to the next test.


	12. Chapter 12

Rey leaned back against his bed, wincing as he held onto his left arm with his right hand, keeping his arm bent up. He had just finished his last test of the day, which had involved giving more blood than he was aware could exist in a human body, and was now holding the bandage on the area and waiting till he felt comfortable that the crook of his elbow wouldn't spurt like a fountain if he moved it.

It had seemed like a long exhausting day, even though it had only been a few hours. The doctors had sent him through every piece of machinery in the hospital they could think of, and after each test, technicians scurried off with pages and notes and files while Keith whisked him off to the next place. He wasn't even sure he knew the names of some of what he'd done, but at least it was finally over with and he could lay back and relax a little.

Rey hesitantly moved his arm, looking down at the bandage over the needle spot, and probed it lightly, wincing at the quick bolt of pain, but he didn't see any sign that it was still bleeding, so he lowered his arm to the bed, letting out a long breath and closing his eyes, enjoying the silence and peace for a moment.

The door came open, and Rey glanced over, smiling some when he saw Batista step in. "Hey, man," he said, sitting up.

"Hey, I came by earlier but you were downstairs. How you feeling?" Dave headed over to the bed, carrying a brown paper bag along with him.

"Like I've been poked and prodded and pricked and under a microscope all damn day. I'm amazed they didn't open my skull and poke my brain with a stick."

Dave chuckled and sat on the bed next to him, pulling the rolling table closer. "I brought lunch, hope you're hungry."

"Starving, man." Rey dug into the bag and took out a few boxes of Chinese takeout, grinning. "I know you didn't forget the chow mein."

"Right here, dude," Dave responded, grinning and handing over the box.

"Dave, I love you, man." Rey chuckled and took the box and the offered chopsticks, opening the box and starting to dig in. Dave picked up his own box, and the two ate in relative silence for a while before Rey looked over at him. "Dave?"

"Yeah, man?"

"How is your eye doing?"

Batista turned his head so that Rey could see his entire face, which had a small bandage over his cheek but was otherwise unmarred. "A little sore, but it'll be all right. A couple of days bruised up. Nothing new. Fortunately you caught me more in the head than on the actual eye or it might have been worse."

"I'm still sorry about that, man. I really wish it hadn't happened..."

Dave waved a hand a bit dismissively. "Don't sweat it, Rey. It's no worse than anything I could get in the ring."

Rey lowered his gaze, then looked back up at him. "Dave...did you really leave Smackdown to come here with me?"

Dave raised his head, looking forward at the wall, not saying anything for a moment. Then he looked back down at the box in his hands. "It's not a big deal."

"Not a big deal? Dave...you gave up your livelihood, your...you were a champion, man. I mean, you were just getting into the prime of things. Why would you leave that all behind just to come here and take care of me?"

"Listen, Rey...I just...I needed to, you know? That's all." Dave wound noodles around his chopsticks, still looking down into the box.

"You could have called...just to check on me. I mean, Dave, it's not that I don't appreciate it, it's just that...I can't believe you'd give up everything for me like that. Just...I'm grateful, but I feel bad."

"You don't need to feel bad, Rey. It's not your fault." Dave looked over at him, managing a weak smile. "You didn't ask for this to happen. But...I felt right, taking this step. It wasn't as hard as you'd think for me to be able to come here and take this, be away from the roster and all that. Besides, the work's not hard, it pays decent...and I'm closer to my family longer. It's really handy for both of us."

"I still really appreciate it, Dave." Rey reached over and patted his leg. "It's amazing you're doing this for me."

Dave just reached over and patted Rey's shoulder, continuing to eat, and after a moment, Rey picked up his box and continued as well, staying quiet for a while. As they were finishing, there was a knock, and the door opened, Marcia stepping in with her large tote over one arm.

"Hello, boys," the woman said warmly, reaching down to pick up her glasses from the chain around her neck, putting them on and studying the white boxes. "David, I see you went to Ming Pao..."

Dave smiled a little and reached into the bag again, taking out a box and holding it out to her. "I didn't forget, Marcia."

"Such a nice fellow," she replied, patting his head as though he were a child, which made Dave laugh somewhat. "Oh, and Rey, honey, I got those books I said I would bring for you..." She dug into her bag and took out three hardbacks, holding them out to him. "They aren't much, but maybe they'll be better than nothing."

"Thanks...thanks, Marcia." Rey took the books and smiled at her, and the older woman patted his shoulders, smiling back.

"David, are you spending the night again tonight?" she asked, looking over at him.

"No, ma'am. I've got some appointments I've got to get to."

"You're not gonna be in here with me tonight?" Rey asked, looking over at him.

"No, buddy, you're on your own tonight." Batista put an arm around Rey's shoulders. "But no worries, you've spent plenty of nights on your own here. The doctors and nurses will keep an eye on you during the night."

Rey nodded a bit, smiling up at him, glancing down at the books in his hands.

"All right, boys, I'm off to clock in and make my rounds," Marcia said, smiling at the two of them again. "Rey, enjoy those books, and if you need some more, just let me know. David, I'll see you in the morning."

"See you later, Marcia," Dave said, as Rey waved a bit, and the woman smiled and went back to the door, knocking lightly, then stepping out as she went.

"How does that work?" Rey asked, as the door closed.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, when I just went down to the second floor, I saw everyone's doors, but how do you know when someone needs to come out of the room?"

"Most of the time, the only people in the rooms are the patients. Whenever a doctor or a nurse heads in, one of us security guys gets paged to accompany them, so we can wait outside till they need to come out."

"Oh." Rey nodded some, setting the books on the table beside the bed. "Well those will help the time pass a little bit faster, I suppose." He sat back again, looking up at Dave once more. "Have I done this before, Dave?"

"Done what?"

"Well...you guys said I'd been here nearly a year, and you were talking when I...woke up about how much better I had been doing. Have I ever forgotten everything of this before, or is this the first time?"

Dave chewed the inside of his cheek slightly, a habit Rey had tried unsuccessfully to break him of before...this. "Not...not exactly the first time, no, but...this does seem to be the most severe of it. Before it was just bits and pieces of things...not everything and for such a long period of time." Dave looked over at him. "But aside from the bad dreams, you're staying pretty lucid."

"So that's good, right?"

"Hell, I don't know, man. I only understand about a third of the stuff your doctor says, to be honest." He draped an arm around Rey's shoulders again. "But between you and me, you seem better, somehow. Like maybe your brain, I don't know...maybe it hit some big internal reset button and you're back to normal now. That would be a hell of a way for it to happen, wouldn't it?" Dave chuckled faintly, but it seemed as though his heart wasn't entirely in it.

"Well...did anything happen before I lost all the memories, like, some new test or something?"

"I don't think so...just the usual day...got up, ate breakfast, went to your group therapy, I came and got you for a workout downstairs, back up for lunch and dinner, bedtime...all the usual crap."

"So...so this just all came out of nowhere, huh?"

"Pretty much..." Dave rubbed the bridge his nose between his fingers. "Maybe there'll be some change in all your test results that'll point to the results. But if you ask me, you seem good. If it keeps up, maybe they can figure out some way to fix your nightmares and you can be back home soon."

"I'd like that." Rey leaned against Batista's side a moment. "Then we can both make our dramatic comebacks to the ring in style, huh?"

Dave chewed on his cheek again. "Yeah, man, we'll do that. We'll go for the tag belts again. It'll be...it'll be awesome." He grunted, then got to his feet, rubbing his back a bit. "Well...I probably ought to get going...I got a few little things I need to run out and take care of today."

Rey nodded, sliding off the bed to stand as well. "When will you be back?"

"Tomorrow morning. I'll be on shift, though, so I won't be able to stay around long. If you're still asleep when I get here, I'll just check back in with you later." He patted Rey's shoulder. "Tomorrow at lunch at the very latest, I promise."

"Okay, that's good. That's not too long." Rey chuckled. "Probably irrational, but I feel a lot safer somehow when I know that you're here with me. I know that sounds silly, the hospital folks aren't here to hurt me...but you're at least a familiar face."

Batista half-smiled again, then pulled Rey in for a quick embrace before letting go and stepping back. "You just get some rest, read your books, and take it easy, all right? I'll see you tomorrow."

"See you tomorrow, man." Rey raised one hand in a half-wave, and Dave moved over to the door, rapping at it lightly with his knuckles, and stepping out when the doorknob turned, the door quickly closing behind him. Rey hopped back up to sit on the bed, sitting back and picking up the box of chow mein again, working on finishing it off. He turned his gaze over to the three books, reaching over to pick up the first one. He chuckled faintly when he saw it was a copy of Through The Looking Glass...he wouldn't have figured the grandmotherly woman for the fantasy type. Still, it was better than unadulterated silence, so he opened it up and started reading, still nibbling at the food Dave had brought him and, at least somewhat, feeling more normal than he had since he'd woken up here.


	13. Chapter 13

Rey shifted a bit, blinking in confusion a moment, feeling a pillow underneath him and a blanket over him where he was, laying on his front with his arms beneath him. He must have fallen asleep while he was reading, but why did things seem-

There was the sudden sharp pain of something large, as though a vice had clasped around his head, and Rey gasped, then yelped when a heavy weight suddenly settled over him, crushing him down against the mattress. "What the hell-?" he grunted, squirming.

"Hell is exactly the right answer, Rey..." a deeply disturbing voice intoned behind him, and Rey froze, eyes going wide with terror when he realized everything in a burst...he was wearing his mask, the vice on his head was a giant hand, and Kane was over him, leering down at him.

The basement.

"GET OFF ME!" Rey screamed, starting to struggle and kick and flail and do anything he could to try and get away, but he became fast aware of one other new fact-that his hands were cuffed together. "What are you...no! No, no no no!"

Kane chuckled, just pressing his greater weight down on Rey, keeping him held in place despite his best efforts. "What's the matter, Rey? I thought you'd be happy to see me again. It almost hurts my feelings..." He laughed, a rough, terrifying noise that caught Rey's breath in his throat, making him feel as though he couldn't draw in any air.

"No...no no no..." Rey muttered, shaking his head. "This isn't real...it isn't _real_! This is a dream and you're not _real_!"

Kane's weight crushed down against him more, and Rey gasped when he felt a hand under him, grabbing his bound hands and yanking them out. "I'm not real? That's your only defense against this, Rey? To tell me...that I'm not real?" Kane laughed again, patting the back of his head. "That's...quaint."

Rey struggled and pulled against the cuffs Kane was holding, kicking his feet futilely. "I know you're not real! I know what's happening to me! This is just another of those stupid nightmares, another misfire from my brain! This isn't happening!"

There was no response for a minute, leaving Rey to wiggle and fight uselessly to try and escape. Then he sensed Kane nearer, and when the man spoke, Rey could feel his breath against his ear.

"If it's not happening, Rey...then why are you afraid?"

"I'm _not_ afraid!" Rey shouted. "I'm not afraid of you because you aren't real!"

"Not real?" Kane suddenly shifted his weight, planting a knee in the small of Rey's back, then grabbing at his bound hands and wrenching them up and backwards, over Rey's head, bending his back hard and causing the smaller man to hiss in pain. "You still want to try and cling to your not really being here? You're still denying what your fate has become?"

"This is a dream!" Rey cried out, trying to get loose to relieve the pressure on his back and arms. "The doctors told me, Dave told me, this is all just a bad dream!"

"How do you know, Rey...?" Kane responded, letting go of his hands and letting him fall back against the bed. "How do you know _this_ is the dream? You're experiencing two realities, why would you arbitrarily choose this one not to be your reality?"

"What are you talking about? Get off of me, let me go!"

Kane smirked somewhat, moving again to lay against his back, pressing Rey into the bed. "You can't deny it, can you? Some part of you realizes this is right. For all I know, you know entirely what's happening to you, and you're just making it...better...for me..." Kane laughed again, a low sound that chilled Rey's bones.

"I don't know what you're talking about! You aren't real! You can't be!"

The instant those words left his mouth, the weight on his back suddenly lifted, and Rey tried to take the chance to scramble away, but before he could, Kane grabbed his cuffed hands and threw him back against the bed, moving inhumanly fast to straddle Rey's waist and grab hold of both of his arms, one in either hand, glaring down at Rey with a look of what seemed mere annoyance. Even annoyance from Kane, though, was a devastating feature.

"Does this feel like it's not real, Rey? Does the fact that I'm able to do anything I want to you and you are completely powerless to stop it mean nothing to you?" Kane let go of one of his arms and grabbed Rey's face hard, squeezing and yanking him upright so they were eye to eye. "Are you so stupid that you can't figure this out?" Rey stared back at him, and Kane's annoyed look faded, the sadistic grin returning. "You are, aren't you? You have no idea. You're either so stupid or so self-deluded that you honestly can't figure out where you are."

"I'm in the hospital..." Rey stammered. "I'm in Essex County...I'm in bed right now. I fell asleep reading, I must have fallen asleep..."

He didn't get a chance to even try and protect himself. Kane released his face, and at the same time, slapped him so hard that his vision blacked, knocking him to the bed again. Rey wanted to grab at his now aching face, but Kane still held one of his arms, and with the cuffs in place he couldn't.

Kane was yelling now...bellowing right into Rey's face. "The hospital isn't real, you dumb little bastard! Get it through your thick skull! You're not in a hospital! You're here, you've been here, you will _always_ be here!" He slapped Rey again, this time getting a scream of pain from the smaller man. He grabbed Rey by the throat, squeezing hard, seething down at him. "This is HELL, Rey! This is your eternal damnation! This was your judgement, your punishment for your sins! I've been chosen to make you suffer for all eternity and there isn't a goddamn thing you can do to change that!"

Rey whimpered unwillingly at the pain in his head from the hard slaps, staring up at Kane's enraged expression. "No...no, this isn't...this isn't hell, it's...it's...you're a dream...just a dream from my sick messed-up brain..."

Kane's expression melted easily back into the smirk. "Your brain must have been sick and messed up for you to end up here, Rey. I mean, I knew...I always knew I would...and I knew I would receive a hero's welcome when I got here." He yanked Rey up close again. "But I never imagined I would end up with a prize like you for all my eternity. A little noble bitch like you must have had all sorts of hidden vices for you to wind up being owned by me."

Rey shook his head hard, even though that made the pain worse. "No! That's not what's happening! It's _not_!"

"Really? You still don't want to believe your fate?" Kane shoved him against the bed hard, then stood. Rey moved again to try and escape, but Kane caught him by the waistband of his pants and pulled him up before he could even get off his back. He tossed Rey onto his front, then sat next to him, pressing one of his enormous hands against his back to hold him down, and snaking the other underneath him.

"What are you doing?" Rey cried, thrashing, trying to get up.

"I'm going to have to prove to you what's going on here, Rey..." Kane said, alarmingly calm for him. "It's not gonna be any fun for me until you really know and understand what's happened." With that, the hand underneath Rey moved up to pull the button of his jeans loose, then started to unzip them.

"What are you doing-WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" Rey shrieked, starting to kick and thrash again. "Stop it! STOP IT! NO!"

Kane grunted, as Rey was struggling enough to almost get away, but he shifted his weight and kept the smaller man down, getting the zipper pulled all the way down. He slid his hand up and to the waist of his pants again, starting to tug them down. "This is going to happen, Rey. It's what I WANT. You can't stop it no matter how hard you try...because this is Hell...and you are mine now...and you will always be mine."

"No, no! No no no!" Rey shook his head hard, still helplessly trying to pull away, unable to help tears welling out of his eyes. "Please don't, please! Please, don't do this, please, Kane, please, please, you don't want to do this, please!"

Kane stopped pulling at Rey's pants, laughing eerily again. "Of course I want to do this. I just told you that, you stupid little bitch." He let go of Rey's pants and slapped him hard in the back of the head again, then abruptly shifted his weight, moving to lay down on top of Rey, pressing against him from behind, almost enveloping his tiny form underneath him. Kane turned Rey's head forcefully so that he was looking to the left, then laid his cheek against Rey's in a perverse mockery of a loving cuddle. "I can feel you shivering under me..." he said softly, but with the same smug tone to his voice.

Rey was shivering, he knew it, he couldn't stop it. The words Kane had been pushing at him had finally broken their way through the mind-numbing fear of his situation and intruded furiously on his thoughts. This was Hell? This was his damnation? No, that didn't make sense, it couldn't make sense. He couldn't be in Hell. He was dreaming, he had to still be dreaming, this couldn't be real. He knew he wasn't a perfect being, but Hell? It couldn't be the truth. It just couldn't!

"No..." he whispered, voice cracking. "No, it's not true. It's not Hell...it can't be. I'm not dead! I'm not!"

Kane snorted. "And why not? Didn't you see the gift I left for you earlier? Didn't you enjoy watching him with them?"

Rey's eyes widened slightly. That video...

"He's not who I would have picked..." Kane continued, speaking as though they were discussing the weather or some kind of ball game on television. "Hardy's not exactly someone I consider good stepfather material. And his brother will make a downright horrible role model as an uncle to Dominik and Aalyah. But then again, you're here in Hell with me..." He laughed again. "Which goes to show that I must not be the best judge of character."

"No..." Rey didn't quite manage to shake his head...not really sure what he was denying, but denying it anyway.

"Oh, Rey..." Kane grinned, moving his arms to wrap them underneath Rey and hug him almost lovingly, in a sick sort of fashion. "Now I think I understand why they put me with you. It's a lot of fun watching you bash yourself against the brick wall of your new reality. I think it's going to be more fun waiting for you to finally realize the truth before I finally break you in." Kane shifted, moving his hands down lower, pressing them into Rey's belly. "But then again, it might not be as good if you don't fight...I want you to fight...that is what your dreams are for..."

"What...?"

"Your dreams, of course. The dream I give you of your little escape into that hospital. The way I'm keeping you off-balance, keeping you from coming to grips just yet." Kane lifted his head, kissing Rey's temple once. "It's going to make the moment when you finally accept your fate that much sweeter." He grinned widely, leaning closer and biting at the lobe of Rey's ear a moment. "And the best part is, Rey...after I've done that, given you your goodness and taken it away, then I can erase your mind like I did before...and I can do it all over again...I can keep ruining you over and over for the rest of existance. And there's not one damn thing you can do to stop me." He bit once more, then chuckled. "I have so many plans for your next escape world..."

Rey sniffed and gasped, breath hitching, feeling tears running down his face behind his mask, trying not to sob as Kane continued his attentions to his ear and moved down to his neck. "This isn't real..." he murmured. "This isn't real..."

"Keep telling yourself that as long as you can, Rey...I have all the time in the universe..."


	14. Chapter 14

Rey gasped, eyes shooting open, and he sat up as fast as he could with a shriek, lashing out wildly, but hitting nothing but air. He covered his face quickly, then peeked between his fingers, seeing the plain white walls of his hospital room once again.

"_Dios_..._mio_...oh my..." He leapt off the bed and rushed for the bathroom door, pushing it out of the way quickly and collapsing to his knees next to the toilet, leaning over the bowl and retching, managing to avoid making too much of a mess, gasping softly between heaves, trying to calm down, though not with any luck.

He heard the door to his room come open, and Marcia's voice called out. "Rey? Rey, are you all right? We heard screaming..." Rey couldn't exactly answer her at that moment, but he didn't have to, as she was quickly in the doorway and looking in at him. "Oh my God, Rey, are you all right?"

"Uh...huh..." he wheezed out, leaning back slightly, wincing at the pain in his stomach from the exertion. "I'm okay...I'm all right, Marc-," Rey made a face when he quickly realized he wasn't as okay as he thought, and was back over the bowl quickly.

"Oh dear..." Marcia reached out and pressed the button behind the toilet, then moved to pick up one of the towels that had been brought in, wetting it in the sink and coming around, grasping Rey's chin to raise his head slightly and wiping at his face with it. "There you are, sweetie, it's all right...just relax, it's going to be okay."

"M'okay..." Rey muttered, but he didn't move to try and stop her from washing his face off...the cool water was soothing to his overheated skin...and with the way his stomach muscles were now all knotted up, he didn't feel like doing anything to try and make her stop her actions anyway. "Just another dream...another sick scary dream..."

"This must have been a particularly troublesome one, for you to react like this..." Marcia took her hand away from Rey's face and reached up to press the red button behind the toilet, then turning to mop at his face again. "You're all flushed, dear...we should get you back into bed and see if this is fever..."

"No...no, I don't think it is..." Rey said softly, finally raising one hand to take the towel from her, then scooting back to lean against the shower wall, wiping at his own face and throat to try and soothe the nausea that was still threatening.

"What?" Marcia blinked at him, then looked back as the door to the main room opened, and a young blonde nurse stepped inside, looking over at them.

"Marcia, what's happening? Is everything okay?"

"Yes, I think so, but you should go get Leonard and send him this way."

The second nurse nodded, then headed out, and Marcia stood, offering a hand to Rey.

"Do you think you can make it back to the bed...?" She glanced back over at the toilet. "Do you think you SHOULD make it back to the bed?"

Rey nodded, taking hold of her hand and getting to his feet. "I'm okay now, I promise...it was just a bad...a bad moment, that's all...it's okay now." Nevertheless, Rey allowed Marcia to lead him back into the hospital room and to the bed, guiding him to sit on the edge of the bed as she picked up one of the plastic cups from his bedside and went back to the bathroom. Rey continued to wipe his face and neck with the damp towel as she filled the cup with water and brought it back to him, handing it to him, then crouching to remove a bedpan from underneath the bed.

"Here, sweetie, rinse your mouth, get the worst of that bad taste out of there. It'll make you feel better."

Rey obliged willingly, taking a large swig of the water and swishing it, wincing as he lifted the pan and spit into it, then repeating the action twice more as Marcia put the back of her hand to his forehead, clicking her tongue slightly.

"You're still a little bit warm, but you're cooling off."

"Yeah, like I said...it was just..." He shook his head somewhat. "That dream, it was bad...it was just another bad one..."

Marcia bit her lip slightly, then took the pan and glass from him, setting them on the bedside table. "Still, I should go get a thermometer and make sure you aren't running a fever. All those tests this morning might have been too much for your system..." She turned, clearing the table off and heading out the door.

Rey scooted back to lean back against the bed, hugging his knees to his chest and staring at the opposite wall. He thought back to what had...happened? Or been dreamt? He closed his eyes and shook his head hard. Of course it had been a dream. It was completely illogical to think otherwise. To actually believe that during his sleep, he was somehow bodily whisked away from here and into a cold basement, his clothes were changed and Kane was there threatening him with eternal damnation? And then, for some reason, Kane saw fit to throw him back here, with Dave, the doctor, the kind nurses, just for the sake of keeping him off-balance? Of course not. It was silly to even think it. It was impossible.

__

But nothing is impossible for a creature of Satan, is it?

Rey shook his head hard again. _Don't even think that! It's insane! It's impossible and insane!_ Rey put up his hands slightly in a firm motion, as though to physically shove away the thoughts, then opened his eyes, looking ahead at the clean white wall of the room. He nodded once, then looked over as the door to his room came open again.

_But how can you prove it's not the case! Don't your dreams seem too real to just be nightmares? How would the doctors and nurses here-_

_No! No, no no! That is not what's going on! It's my brain tricking me, that's all this is...that's all it can be! Don't think that anymore!_

"Rey..." Asheville said, stepping inside, carrying a clipboard, with Marcia right behind him, holding a small white thermometer and a couple of other instruments. "I'm told you just had a bit of an episode."

"I...I had a bad dream, that's all. It was just a really scary one again."

Asheville nodded slightly, stepping around to the other side of the bed. Marcia put a thin piece of plastic over the end of the thermometer, and held it out, waiting for Rey to open his mouth before putting it under his tongue. He reached up with one hand to hold the end of it, keeping it still, as Marcia handed Asheville a tiny flashlight, and Asheville leaned closer, shining it into first one of Rey's eyes, then the other. He handed it back to the nurse and made a couple of quick notes on the clipboard, then set it aside, motioning for the blood pressure cuff.

After that procedure was over and more notes had been made, the thermometer beeped, and Marcia took it out of his mouth and looked at it. "99.4. That's a little bit high, but not much. It could just be from exhaustion."

"I just woke up from a nap, how exhausted could I be?" Rey asked.

"You did spend most of the morning downstairs going from room to room and taking long physical tests," Asheville said. "And even with Dave taking you down to work out sometimes, you aren't exactly at the peak physical state you were at when you were still wrestling. Your stamina is a bit less."

Rey leaned back some, getting comfortable. "So...what does that mean...that I'm still having the nightmares?"

"So far, I don't know. Your tests are still being looked over so I can't say as to what's changed in the last couple of days." Asheville glanced at Marcia. "Maybe you should go and let the therapist know Rey won't make group today..."

"Wait..." Rey sat up again. "You mentioned this group yesterday and I didn't go then. Maybe...maybe I should still go today. I mean, maybe that'll be a big help. It couldn't hurt, could it?"

"Well...we don't want to risk tiring you any more than you already are..."

"I'm not tired, I promise," Rey said. "I'm okay. Give me a few more minutes and I bet even the little bit of fever will go away. It was just from the...the vomiting, I promise. I-I want to go to this group, I want to see what it's like."

The doctor and Marcia looked at each other while Rey looked between the two of them, and Marcia reached out to put her hand on his forehead again. "Well...it might do him some good to go and socialize a little with the others. He's only been talking with us and David that he can remember. Maybe seeing some of the others could jog his memory."

Asheville nodded slowly. "We'll give it another hour and see what condition you're in," he replied, looking down at Rey. "We'll let your stomach settle a bit and see if you can hold down something, and if you can, then we'll bring you down to the group."

Rey nodded quickly, smiling. "I'll be able to, I'll be fine, I promise." He sat up on the edge of the bed, looking down, and noticed Marcia's book laying on the floor, where it had obviously been flung when he jumped out of bed. Marcia followed his gaze, then crouched, picking the book up and handing it to him with a smile.

"Maybe no more reading before bed," she joked lightly, and Rey chuckled, taking the book and setting it back on the bedside table.

"I guess I'll try not to."

Marcia patted his head as Asheville took the clipboard and instruments and walked around the bed, heading to the door and having it opened, holding it slightly, waiting on the nurse. "All right, Rey, we'll have something easy for your stomach sent, and if you hold it down, then we'll see about getting you down to your group this afternoon." As Marcia came to join him and they stepped outside, Rey heard the doctor muttering something to her about sending a janitor as the door closed.

Rey laid back down and cuddled against his pillow, getting comfortable. The easy routine from the doctors and nurses, something familiar to anyone who'd been in the hospital as many times as he had been, was almost soothing at this point. It seemed normal and simple, easily dulling his fear. Doctors were looking at his tests, nurses were urging him on. Things were going to be all right after all, no matter how much terror his mind tried to inflict on him.


	15. Chapter 15

Rey settled back in the wheelchair as Keith guided him back down the hall towards the elevator, looking around as he did. "So...what kind of stuff happens in this therapy session?"

"Kind of what you'd expect, I suppose. You guys talk, the doctors and the psychiatrist make notes and offer advice or insights, you know. Pretty much what you've seen in the movies. If they think you've said something that could be really helpful, they could pull you out right then, but usually it's just a way for you guys to socialize, get a feeling of normalcy, things like that. It's all therapeutic."

Rey nodded a little, glancing up at the elevator's lighted numbers as they reached it. After the nightmare incident, Marcia had brought him some soda crackers and ginger ale, and the simple food had done a lot to settle his stomach, so Dr. Asheville had decided he was well enough for the session after all. So here he was on his way down with Keith, who pushed the chair into the elevator and hit the button for the fourth floor. "So, how many other people are there?"

"We keep the groups down to about ten to keep anyone from feeling too overwhelmed, and group you by what you're here for. Your group is you, seven other men, and two women, all with some degree of memory problems. So you'll have a good understanding with them and each other."

"Have I forgotten all of them before?" Rey chewed a thumbnail slightly as the elevator dinged open, and Keith pushed him out into another nearly identical hospital hallway, headed back towards the center of the plus sign shape.

"Well, not completely, but I don't think any of them will hold it against you if you don't recognize them. But hey, we don't know. Maybe once you see them, you'll get a jog and be able to, you know?"

"That'd be good. Then maybe I'd be able to start remembering more stuff and get back to normal."

Keith chuckled a little as they came to a set of red double doors, and he reached over and knocked. "One thing I gotta say about you, Rey, you're always an optimist."

Rey smiled, but went back to chewing his thumbnail as a large, burly guard in white scrubs pushed open the door, and Keith pushed him into the room, stepping in with him and starting to unfasten the seatbelt of the wheelchair. "All right, Rey, I'll be down to get you again once your session is over and then we can go back up to your room. I'll see you in a little bit."

Rey nodded, then got hesitantly to his feet, glancing over at the room. There was a circle of comfortable looking recliners, most of which were already occupied. Nine of the other people were wearing the same type of white pajamas as he was, and of the other three, two-a young Asian woman with short, likely dyed auburn hair and an old, nearly bald man, with small, black eyes and only a few wisps of white hair remaining on his head, were in familiar doctor's scrubs and coats. The third, a man who looked like he was trying far too hard to mimic the stereotypical eccentric therapist, what with his graying shoulder-length hair and matching mustache and beard, and round, Coke bottle glasses, was already typing furiously into a silver laptop, despite the fact that none of the others were doing much more than whispering amongst themselves. Rey glanced back up at the large guard at the door, who looked at him as well, then gestured towards the circle of chairs. "Go on," he gruffed, and Rey turned back, moving hesitantly towards the others.

The female doctor rose, smiling slightly. "Hello, Rey, it's good to see you. How are you feeling?"

"I'm, uh, I'm all right. How...are you?"

The woman smiled, gesturing for Rey to settle into the remaining empty chair. "I'm doing well. Have a seat."

Rey glanced at the two people on either side of him, a slightly pudgy man with long blonde hair and a middle-aged Hispanic man, and carefully settled into the chair, glancing around at all the people.

"All right, everyone," the female doctor said, smiling a little, as they all turned their attention to her. "We're going to be doing things a little differently today. First of all, we're going to go around the circle here and introduce ourselves. You see, Rey is having a slight setback and we're all going to do our part to help him get better. I'll start..." She smiled towards Rey slightly. "My name is Komiko Yagami, and I'm the head of our group therapy department here at Essex County Hospital." She turned and gestured to the other doctor. "This is Dr. Victor Barlow, who's observing our session today, and Dr. Walter Krugman, our psychiatrist." She turned to the first patient on her left, a middle-aged black man with silver glasses. "Why don't we start with you, Daniel?"

The man sitting on the right of the doctors, a somewhat short man who seemed full of nervous energy, cleared his throat a bit nervously and nodded, glancing over at Rey as he spoke. "I'm, uh, Daniel Desmond. I'm 35 years old and from, uh, Oklahoma City."

The doctor smiled, then nodded to the brown-haired woman on the other side of Daniel. "Just around the circle, everyone."

Rey looked to each person in turn and listened as they introduced themselves. The brown-haired woman, Marie, was 36 and was from a town in Wisconsin. An old man next to her was Napoleon, who didn't specify his origin but did offer a wry quip about the unfortunateness of his name. Next to him was a young Asian woman, who didn't look much past her teenage years, who introduced herself as Sylvia from Boise, Idaho. Next was a middle-aged man with thinning blonde hair, Carl, a young brown-haired fellow was Jason, the man next to him with the ponytail was Travis, and the Hispanic man on his other side introduced himself, in Spanish, as Lorenzo, smiling in a way that made Rey feel as though they had more of a relationship than the others.

The only thing was that absolutely none of them were any less strangers now than they had been before he knew their names. It might as well be his first time meeting all of them.

Dr. Yagami smiled to him when the introductions were complete. "All right, Rey, we're going to continue our session today just as normal. You may observe if you like, or if you'd prefer to engage actively, you may do that as well." She turned to her chair and picked up a pink clipboard that had been sitting on it, then settled back into her chair. "Okay, everyone. Does anyone have anything they'd like to talk about?"

There was a brief hesitation, during which Rey noticed the fellow named Daniel shifting a bit in his chair, glancing around with sharp twists of his neck. Finally, the man who had introduced himself as Travis spoke up.

"I talked to my wife on the phone this morning," he said, smiling a little. "She talked to me about my son, and I got some stuff back, remembered a time when he was a baby and fell off the couch and needed stitches. I remembered it all just the same as her."

"That's wonderful to hear," Dr. Yagami said with a warm smile, as the psychiatrist with the thick glasses began typing into his laptop with a renewed vigor. "You've been making some wonderful progress."

"Really wonderful..." Daniel muttered, still glancing around.

The two doctors glanced over towards him, while the psychiatrist barely looked up from his writing. "Is there something you'd like to share with the group, Daniel?" Dr. Barlow spoke for the first time.

Daniel regarded them a bit suspiciously for a minute. "Not right now, no, I don't have anything I want to share with the group...DOCTOR."

Rey winced a bit at the apparent vehemence in the man's voice, and looked over to his right at Lorenzo, who looked back at him and smiled a bit reassuringly, leaning closer to whisper to him in Spanish. "Don't worry, my friend. He can be this way sometimes. Especially after he has some of his bad nights."

_Bad nights_? Rey nodded some, but looked back over at Daniel as the brown-haired woman...Marie, spoke up.

"I think it IS wonderful, Travis," she said softly. "I haven't been able to remember nearly as much as you. Sometimes my husband still sounds so much like a stranger to me."

"But it's only him, isn't it?" the old man, Napoleon, said. "You mentioned talking to your brother last week."

"Yeah, still, though...forgetting your own husband over anyone else." She sighed and leaned back in her chair. "He always sounds so much like he does love me, but then again, I just don't know what I feel. Sometimes it's nothing, and sometimes I start to feel...yes, I do know this voice, but where do I know it from? You know?"

"Look on the bright side, sweetheart," Napoleon said, showing a smile that was missing a couple of his front teeth. "You know he's there for you. He's working hard for you. My misbegotten bastard of a son would just as soon I go ahead and croak so his inheritance ain't still getting spent on his crazy old man. He still insists it's just Alzheimer's, even though my problem ain't that I forget."

"What is your problem?" Rey asked, glancing away from the twitching Daniel to look over to the old man.

Napoleon flashed him that same smile. "I don't suppose you ever heard the story of the man that never forgot, did you?"

"That can happen?" Rey blinked.

"Apparently so, yeah. Wouldn't be a problem if it weren't for the fact that after enough years of accruing memories and dreams and every other little bit of crap, you kinda start to lose track of all the stuff...like a 'puter that's been jammed completely full. Guess it can...run slow." He grunted and adjusted his recliner so that the feet were up, and leaned back again, getting comfortable.

"It really is a varied group we have here," Dr. Yagami said to Rey. "All tied together in that you all have issues with your memory in some way."

"Yeah, that's what they keep telling us..." Daniel muttered, squirming more. Rey winced...the man's apparent franticness was making him feel a little edgy.

"Daniel, we've had this discussion already," Dr. Barlow spoke up again. "You know why you're here. We've shown you the tapes from your earlier sessions and you saw clearly-,"

"I saw what you wanted me to see!" Daniel abruptly exploded, leaping to his feet, pointing a finger towards them. "But I know what you are! I've figured it all out and you can't stand that, can you?"

"Daniel, please have a seat..." Dr. Yagami said, as even the silent psychiatrist glanced up from his computer, looking over in apparent curiosity.

"I don't want to have a SEAT!" he yelled, clenching his fists at his side. "I know what you are! I can see through your little facade, I know all about this! You monsters!"

"Daniel, did you receive your medication this morning...?" Dr. Barlow asked, starting to get to his feet as well.

"No, I didn't take your poison! I didn't and I won't and you can't force me, Satan!"

Rey looked around at the stunned faces of the others, then back to Lorenzo, who glanced at him with wide eyes, then looked back at Daniel.

"You're trying to trick us and I know it! I put all the pieces together! I know this is all a lie! You're tools of the Dark One sent here to torture us but I know your tricks! I know what's happening!" He turned to the others, grabbing Marie by her shoulders. "I know! You can't go to sleep! That's how they get you, when you sleep!"

Marie let out a small cry of pain. "Daniel, let go, you're hurting me!"

Rey leapt quickly to his feet, as did Lorenzo, Napoleon, and the other three men, Travis, Carl, and Jason. Napoleon took hold of Sylvia's hand and guided her back, while Travis and Carl grabbed hold of Daniel's arms to pull him away from Marie, and Jason quickly guided her away. "Come on, man," Travis said, his ponytail seeming to be coming loose already. "You gotta relax."

"You don't know!" Daniel snarled back. "They come in your sleep and take you away from here, they tear your body apart, and you can't stop them! Dragging you down into Hell and no way to get back out till they say so!"

Rey looked to the door to see the two guards observing them, but they were tensed, obviously ready to jump in should things escalate any further. _Typical..._Rey thought a little bitterly. _Just like WWE, don't jump in to do anything till the damage is already done. I swear they hire their security from the same place._

Fortunately, Dr. Yagami was on her feet as well, and gesturing to the guards. "I think that Daniel might need to be escorted back to his room," she said, wincing a bit as she and the Dr. Barlow moved behind their chairs. All the while, the psychiatrist was still typing away at his laptop, though now he was keeping his gaze on the patients, as though prepared to protect his computer should the fracas suddenly spill over into his direction.

"I don't want to go back to my room!" Daniel spat, pulling away from Travis and Carl and moving towards the opposite wall. "That's where it all happens! It happens when no one can see you! They won't do it while you can be seen! They don't want us to know!"

"Come on now, boy," Napoleon said, moving closer to touch his shoulder. "Maybe you need to get back and get some rest-,"

"NO!" Daniel whirled around, shoving the old man to the ground. "That's where the devil gets you! I don't want to go back to my room!"

"Hey!" Rey ran over before the others could react, getting between the two. "Back off, man!"

Before Daniel could do anything else, the guards were on him, one grabbing each arm and pulling Daniel backwards, and the man let out a howl of rage, kicking and thrashing wildly. "Let go of me! I don't want to go back up there! They're just going to drag me back in! I don't want to go! I won't go and you can't make me!"

Rey looked after them, keeping his fists at the ready just in case Daniel managed to break loose, but the guards hauled him to the door, one of them kicking at it to have it opened, and they pulled him out, with two new guards stepping into their places, and as the door was closed again, they could still hear Daniel's screams and struggles fading away down the hallway.

The others were murmuring amongst themselves, as Rey turned to the old man still sprawled on the floor, offering him a hand. "Are you okay, man?"

Napoleon rubbed his elbow a bit before taking Rey's hand and getting to his feet, grunting. "Takes a little more than that to hurt this geriatric," he said with a grin. "Thanks for the back-up though."

Rey nodded to him, then looked back at the door.

"That's not normal," he heard in Spanish beside him, and he looked over to Lorenzo, who was giving him a somewhat sheepish look.

"I didn't figure as much," he replied in kind, wincing and looking over at the door again. "Still...I think maybe..."

"Think maybe what?"

Rey chewed his lip as he considered, but before he could speak, Dr. Yagami spoke up.

"All right, um...would the rest of you like to continue your session or should we call this an early day?"

The others mumbled answers and debated amongst themselves, but Rey didn't pay attention to that, watching the door, thinking over what Daniel had been talking about. Devils and Satan and Hell? That sounded alarmingly, terrifyingly familiar. But he wasn't sure what to make of it. He turned and gauged that the others had voted to continue the session, and moved to take his seat back, deciding he'd wait till he was back among more familiar faces before talking this one over.


	16. Chapter 16

Rey paced in his room, going from one wall to the other in a meandering sort of pattern, face down to watch the placement of his bare feet. There wasn't any real purpose to it, just reasonless movement, but after spending the last couple of days, or however long it had been, being wheeled from room to room and either in bed or curled up in a chair, he was restless to get something done. He debated whether or not to ask Dave if they could go down to the physical therapy room and work out as he had mentioned them doing before.

That would wait, though. The first thing he wanted to know was why that guy Daniel was suffering the same way he was, claiming Satan or something from Hell was abducting him every time he slept. It was just too...neat. Too similar. Too much of a glitch in the Matrix to believe that there could be two of them, in the same hospital, the same _therapy group_, with that complaint. Oh, it'd be one thing if they were both suffering from some common ailment, some plain anterograde amnesia or something like that. But two people both being whisked away from their hospital rooms to somewhere that claimed to be Hell?

Rey made his way over to the window, opening it as far as it would go again, leaning down to peer through the opening, as though even the clear glass was skewing his perspective. Silly, maybe, but it made him feel better.

The door finally came open behind him, and he turned to see Marcia making her way in, carrying a covered tray with a smile on her face. "Good evening, Rey," she said warmly, coming over and setting the tray on his rolling table. "Getting a little fresh air?"

"Yeah, guess you could say that..." he mumbled, standing and coming over. "When is someone else coming by?"

"Oh, were you needing to speak to Dr. Asheville?" she asked, motioning for him to sit. "I can go fetch him for you."

"Yeah, I gotta ask him about some stuff..." Rey answered, turning from the bed and continuing to pace.

"Well, sit down and eat your dinner and I'll go page him."

"I'm not hungry..."

Marcia raised an eyebrow at that statement. "In all the time I've known you, you've never been 'not hungry.' Is there something wrong, sweetheart?"

Rey glanced at her as he continued his walk, then looked to his feet, shaking his head. "I just...something is wrong. I don't know what but something's wrong. There's something about all this that isn't...I don't know."  
Marcia moved over and sat on the bed, watching him with some concern. "Rey, what are you talking about? What's wrong?"

"I really think it's something I should talk to the doctor about. I mean, this is...it's major, I think."

"Well, why don't you tell me what it is so I can convince him to come in case he doesn't take my word for it?"

Rey hesitated in his pacing, blinking, then looked back at her. "You're very good at your job."

Marcia smiled slightly. "I wouldn't be here if I weren't. So talk to me, dear, what's the matter?"

Rey let out a bit of a rough sigh, rubbing his temples. "There was this guy in the group downstairs, Daniel."

The nurse seemed to immediately gain a look of understanding. "What did he say?"

"Say? What do you mean?"

"Well..." She considered a moment, frowning. "I'm not really supposed to discuss other patients and things like that with people other than the staff...but this does obviously have you and probably some of the others agitated."

"You can say that again..." Rey answered, shaking his head and coming over, lifting the lid off the tray, making a face at the unidentifiable brown meat on the plate. "What is this supposed to be, anyway?"

"Meatloaf, so the chef downstairs says. For what it's worth, he's very good for what we pay him." Marcia chuckled faintly at her own joke, but it died quickly when Rey merely replaced the lid and turned to walk again. "This must really be bothering you, you usually love to joke with me about the chef."

"Well, aside from the fact that he got all hysterical and crazy and nearly attacked people, he said some stuff that kind of stuck out to me..." Rey answered slowly.

"Ohhh, my. All right...what did he say?"

"He...he was talking about falling asleep, and that every time he did, he woke up, um, like...in Hell. He was talking about all this being some kind of trick by Satan to do...something. And he was saying stuff about...the doctors and people here were part of the facade or something, I don't know, it wasn't all clear...but a lot of it sounded awful...familiar." He glanced over at the nurse, almost feeling embarrassed about the statement, feeling as though he were the one throwing wild accusations. To his surprise, though, Marcia was only nodding slowly, seeming to be thinking.

"Well, that's something new for him, and I'm going to guess that poor girl Komiko spoke with the group before you made it down."

"Why would you guess that?" Rey asked, blinking.

She hesitated, glancing at the door almost guiltily, then motioned for Rey to come over and sit next to her, which he did. "You see, sweetie..." she whispered, still glancing at the door. "Daniel has something of a...do you know what Munchausen's disorder is?"

"I think so...I've heard about it on TV sometimes, like those mothers who hurt their kids or something."

"Well, that's the by proxy. Regular Munchausen's is when a person hurts themself, or makes up stories about being hurt, or something along those lines, to gain attention and sympathy for themself. Daniel was originally diagnosed in another hospital as having Munchausen's, but after some studying, they've found that there's actually more to it than that..."

"What do you mean?"

"Well...they eventually noticed that Daniel didn't really make up stories or injuries by himself...he'd only parrot things he'd heard from other people or sources. If he saw someone on television with cancer, he'd start insisting he had it just the same, or if a doctor mentioned having a headache, he would claim one within a few minutes."

Rey nodded. "I understand that, but...why is he in a group for memory issues, then?"

"Well, that's where it gets particularly interesting. While at first he would just copy the symptoms, apparently in the last few years, he's starting adding, well, backstory. He would start talking about when his imaginary aches or illnesses started, how they interfered in his days, you know? And after some testing, they found out that he really and truly seems to gain 'memories' of those, and would never deviate in them."

"Like...he made up a whole new set of memories for himself for them?" Rey asked incredulously.

"Yes, exactly. Every time he latches on to a new set of symptoms, he would jettison the old false memories and come up with brand new ones."

Rey winced a little. "That's awful. Does he still...does he have family or anything like that?"

Marcia shook her head slightly. "I don't know for sure and I'm not sure he does either. But here's the thing of what happened today, Rey. If I ask Dr. Yagami, I'm sure she'll admit that she talked to the group before you arrived and described the troubles you were having..." Marcia's voice tinged with the faintest bit of annoyance. "Although a major part of what we're working with Daniel is trying to not mention anything but memory issues around him in the hopes that he'll start focusing on that, but I'm guessing she brought up your sleep troubles as well..."

"So you're saying that he just...made up all that stuff?"

"Sort of. It wasn't something he did intentionally, it's just what happens with him." She sighed softly. "So now lord only knows what kind of troubles we're going to have with getting him settled in again. This probably set him back months."

Rey grimaced a bit. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean-,"

"Oh, honey, you didn't have anything to do with it. It was just a mistake, that's all. We can fix it just the same way that we're going to fix you." She chuckled a little, glancing back at the door, then to him. "But listen, all right...I didn't tell you any of this. I could get in some serious trouble for discussing another patient with you. I just wanted to help you relax and not worry too much."

Rey nodded a bit. "Yeah...thanks. I guess that does make more sense than there being two of us having Hell nightmares."

Marcia smiled some. "If someone else here starts genuinely having the same night terrors that you're having, we will certainly do whatever we can to get to the bottom of it." She patted his shoulder again, getting to her feet. "Even if that involves getting a young priest and an old priest involved." Rey chuckled at that, and Marcia smiled. "There's that smile. I knew we could work you around. Still, do you still want to talk to Dr. Asheville?"

Rey shook his head. "No, I don't guess I need to. I was just kinda freaked...you know, hearing that..."

"I understand perfectly, sweetie. I'd feel exactly the same way. At any rate, eat your dinner, and Dave should be by in a little while to check in with you."

Rey nodded, and the nurse turned, heading to the door and waiting for it to be opened for her before she stepped out, giving Rey one last reassuring smile as she did. Rey turned his attention back to the covered tray and lifted it up, shifting himself around to sit with his back against the bed to give himself a little support, pulling the rolling table around to get comfortable while he ate. This meal, fortunately, was a lot better than it looked, and considerably better than the last couple of sorry excuses for hospital food he'd been exposed to.

He winced a bit as he thought about what that poor fellow Daniel must be going through right now. His situation felt awful enough right now by itself, but he at least still had all the old memories of family and friends to think about and comfort himself with. If Daniel completely lost everything whenever he generated a new set...Rey shuddered slightly, shaking his head. It was too horrific to even contemplate. By that sort of comparison, losing a year or so of memory was nothing. At least for the most part, he was still in control of his own mind. He'd never even heard of something as awful as that.

Rey polished off the food quickly, a bit surprised by his own appetite, then pushed the table aside, getting back to his feet and going over to the window. He winced at the cool air coming through, but for it to be March, especially in New England, it wasn't a big surprise. He shivered slightly as he pushed the window closed again, looking out at the woods beyond the building for a moment, thinking from the twilight that it must be still early in the evening. He wasn't completely sure if there was any kind of lights-out schedule or anything, but even if there was, there were a few hours to go. Maybe he could still get Dave to take him down to work out if he got there soon enough. In the meantime, Rey headed back to the bed, looking at the stand with the books from Marcia still stacked there. He shoved Through The Looking Glass aside, not wanting to risk falling asleep with that one again. He picked up the second book, frowning a bit at the title...Lightning, by someone named Dean Koontz. The name rung some bells, he had a feeling he should know who that was, but he couldn't come up with anything just yet. He considered a moment, then shrugged, climbing onto the bed and settled back to get comfy, opening the paperback and starting to read.


	17. Chapter 17

Author's note: This chapter and the one to follow shortly are a bit more of a disturbing and possibly upsetting thing than most, and also probably qualifies somewhere as blasphemy. Proceed cautiously if you're easily upset and/or offended.

( )

Rey opened his eyes, wincing a bit as it was dark all around him, and the air was somewhat stuffy and thick. He shifted a moment, becoming aware that the covers were over his head. He grumbled a little, but before he moved to toss them off, he heard a familiar giggling voice nearby.

"Mommy, Mommy, lookit!"

Rey blinked. _Aalyah? _Was that really his daughter out there laughing? Where was he? Was this his bed at home or-

He flung away the covers, sitting up quickly, but his curiosity was not just solved, but smashed, when he saw the blank concrete walls of the all-too-familiar basement. He flinched and gasped, shoving himself back against the headboard of the bed, looking around with his eyes wide, wondering where Kane was. His frantic scan of the room didn't reveal the giant, but it did show him something else that was back, as the television from before was on, and once again playing video of his family. On the screen now was an image of his daughter, wearing a pink and white striped dress, her long dark hair curled around her shoulders, and she was spinning around in a grassy field, waving a pinwheel and giggling as it spun in a blur of metallic colors.

The scene moved back some, and Rey saw a familiar set of legs moving by in the background as the image stayed with Aalyah...Angie was walking behind her. "Look here, honey," his wife said, crouching down so he could now see her face. She had changed her hair since the last time he'd seen her, with a short bob around her face and a faint hint of red to it. As she spoke, she reached up to grip the pinwheel, blowing it to cause it to spin.

"Ohhhhhhh!" Aalyah squealed, taking hold of the pinwheel and blowing short puffs of breath at it, making it more twitch and jerk than actually spin, and then she shook it wildly again, making it spin and causing both Angie and-this voice made him aware it was a man-the man holding the camera to laugh.

"Careful, Ally, you're going to put Mommy's eye out," the man spoke, and Rey blinked as he recognized that particular degree of North Carolina twang.

"Nuh-UH, Matt!" Aalyah said, looking up at him, then back down at the pinwheel, shaking it out again.

Angie stood, walking off the camera, and the scene stayed with Aalyah as she and Matt Hardy had a conversation. "How much longer do you think Jeff and Dominik are going to be gone?"

"I don't know, I guess it depends on whether or not Jeff fell in the pond again."

"Matthew Moore Hardy, your brother had better not have Dominik diving off the top of some cliff."

Matt chuckled, while on the screen, Aalyah apparently lost interest temporarily in the pinwheel, looking off to the side and running off towards a nearby patch of daffodils, crouching and starting to fiddle with the flowers. "Come on, Angie, Jeff knows better than to take Dominik somewhere like that. He's got enough experience babysitting by this point."

"I know, I just get worried..."

"Don't worry, baby. They're just fishing. He's not going to let anything happen to Dommy."

A voice spoke suddenly from behind Rey. "Just disgusting, isn't it?"

Rey yelped and jumped forward, spinning around, seeing Kane was standing against the far wall, arms crossed, smirking over at him with a look which, to Rey's mind, brought to mind a shining example of a cat and a canary. "Wh-where the...how did you..."

"I know I've said this already, but I really cannot believe she went to Matt Hardy of all people. Opposite sides of the country, he's a podunk redneck with a semi-retarded younger brother always flitting around, but I guess love really is blind." Kane grinned widely. "I should know, I managed to attract more than my fair share of hot girls in my day, didn't I?" He laughed, the sound repulsively out of place over the still-playing video of Matt and Angie watching Aalyah playing in the field.

"What the hell is going on? What is this?" Rey started to look back at the TV at a giggle from his daughter, but caught himself before he could, keeping his eyes locked firmly on the giant against the wall. "What the hell am I doing here?"

Kane rolled his eyes slightly, obviously annoyed at the question. "You have got to be the thickest little bastard this side of the Pearly Gates. Didn't we already have this conversation?"

There was a sudden rush of static, and Rey jumped, whipping around to see the video on the TV had gone to snow, apparently the end of the videotape. He only glanced at it, turning his attention quickly back to Kane, not wanting to keep his gaze off the giant even an instant longer than necessary. "This can't be happening..." Rey muttered, chewing his lip. "It doesn't make any sense. This is so...it doesn't...this is crazy. Only someone sick in the head could come up with something like this..."

Kane grinned widely. "Quite a compliment you're giving me there. I am rather proud of this whole idea I came up with for your eternal damnation."

Rey shook his head, moving to slide off the bed, still staring towards him. "No, this isn't happening. I'm dreaming this right now. I'm insane. I'm obviously insane, the hospital was exactly where I needed to be, I'm very, very clearly-,"

Kane practically lurched off the wall, starting towards him, and Rey couldn't help but back away, almost bumping into the television set, looking around frantically for a way out. Even though they'd never helped him before, he turned and hurried to the stairs, rushing up them as fast as he could go, panting as he reached out, grabbing at the doorknob, wrenching at it violently, trying to open it. He heard Kane start to laugh again behind him, and Rey whipped around, pressing back against the door, staring down at him. Kane was standing at the base of the stairs, hands on his hips, smirking.

"You don't want to do that, Rey. I can promise you that. That door is the last step before I finally get to watch your reality break all around you."

"Stop it!" Rey shouted down at him. "You're some sick figment of my imagination, I'm not going to listen to you! I know you aren't real! The only reason I can't open this door is because it's not real, none of this is, it's all just crazy hallucinations, it's not real, it's not, it's not, it's NOT!" Rey winced a little, holding his head, trying to avoid the sense of vertigo that was coming from all this. It was like he was teetering, couldn't really get a grasp on anything...almost like he was about to be physically pitched forward down the stairs. He panted, trying to get in a breath, feeling a whimper building up that he tried desperately to keep held down. "It's not real...it's not..."

Kane smirked again. "Then again...you're starting to crack already, aren't you? It's starting to come together in your feeble little head." He snorted, shaking his head. "Didn't take you as long as I was starting to think it would." Rey just stayed where he was, pressed against the door, staring down at him. The two regarded each other silently for a moment, then Kane's face developed that familiar sneer. "Tell you what. Why don't we go ahead and finish this, huh? I think it is time for you to open that door."

"Fin...finish...?" Rey shook his head slowly. "What's...what's behind it? What do you want me to see?"

"You're going to see the truth, Rey. I think it's time for you to accept what your fate really is. Time to end the game, so to speak." Kane narrowed his eyes faintly. "It's unlocked now. Go ahead and open it. Step outside if you dare to. See what your eternity is."

Rey chewed his lip, staring down at Kane. He didn't trust the sound of this...the fact that Kane wanted him to open the door told him that it was probably the worst decision he could possibly make. But what other option did he have? Staying here with Kane? Regardless of where this nightmare was going to take him, it was probably going to be someplace he didn't want to be. Better to try the devil he didn't know at this point. He winced a little, turning and grabbing at the doorknob, turning it, blinking when it actually turned the whole way. He hesitated a moment, but seeing Kane starting to chuckle convinced him. He turned, grabbed at the doorknob, twisting and pulling the door open-

It was as though a wall of pure heat hit him, like opening an oven with one's face next to the door, enough of a rush of it that his clothing rippled and blew backwards from it. At the same time, there was such a blinding light that he had to shield his face with his hands to avoid the pain that would surely come from it. Rey staggered back a bit, stumbling on the steps, going down to all fours to stop from falling down them, and only then did he raise his gaze, squinting, trying to see through the door.

__

Fire.

Rey blinked and gasped aloud, staring in open-mouthed shock. It was all he could see outside the door. Nothing but fire, what looked like nothing but an ocean of fire. Roaring, blistering hot, flares of reds, whites and yellows, flames as far as he could see, like an entire forest fire had managed to lock itself behind a simple wooden door.

He could hear screaming, shrieks and howls from somewhere in the midst of it, things like a lion's roars or a bear's snarls, the screams of some terrible jungle beasts, but just _not_, somehow so much worse, distorted and wrong, a cacophony of noise, only barely discernible over only the sound, the heat, the rushing fury of the fire. He became aware of a louder sound, a frantic gasping, and couldn't make it stop even when he realized it was him, even as he curled up into a ball on the stairs, spellbound and horrified at the sight.

Rey was just barely aware of being brushed by, as Kane moved up the stairs beside him, reaching out to take the door, slamming it back closed, and as soon as he had, it was as though there was none of the tremendous chaos outside...the basement was plunged back into the silence that had always accompanied it, save for a residual bit of heat and Rey's own choked sounds of fear.

"Now do you believe me, Rey?" Kane asked, glaring down at him. "Now do you understand, you stupid little bitch?" Kane moved closer, leaning down to almost bellow into his face. "What more proof do you need, you idiot? Do I need to go fetch Satan himself to tell you? Do you need to actually watch the rest of the damned twisting in their chains? I made this place just for you, just to torture you and make you suffer, because you DESERVE to be here! You're a miserable, unforgiven SINNER and you are in HELL!"


	18. Chapter 18

Rey stared up at Kane as the larger man glared down at him, wanting to crawl away backwards, even though there was nowhere to go but the door...and he knew that he wasn't going anywhere near that door again. Not even Kane was more terrifying than what he had just seen through that. "It can't be..." Rey whimpered, shaking his head, staying down where he was. "That's...that's impossible..."

"I got one more little bit of 'evidence' for ya, Rey-Rey," Kane said, moving closer, reaching down to grab his arm and wrench Rey to his feet, dragging him down the stairs. Rey couldn't quite seem to figure out how to resist, he stumbled along as best he could, gulping, his brain whirling so fast that he couldn't even comprehend what exactly was happening until Kane was already sitting on the bed, pulling Rey down into his lap and grabbing at his wrists, holding him tightly against his chest, similar to how Dave had restrained him earlier in the hospital bed, only this time, the crushing grip on his arms was even more painful.

"Stop it!" Rey was alarmed to hear almost a whine in his voice, even as he squirmed and tried futilely to pull himself free. "Please, stop, please..."

"SHUT UP!" Kane snarled right into his ear, and he yanked Rey back hard, squeezing him tightly. "Quit fighting me! You're going to see this, Rey...you're going to see this and you won't be able to deny this any more!"

Rey squirmed and continued to try and struggle, but when the TV's snow suddenly flickered back into life, he froze at the sight of what appeared on the monitor, not entirely understanding at first.

The scene was apparently the inside of a large church, one that he recognized as the one he and Angie and the children attended whenever possible. Except that at the front of it, near the altar, there was a bank of flowers, sprays and pots and wreathes of all types and colors. There were a few pictures scattered around, though he couldn't tell what they were of, and on a stand in the middle the set-up, there was an elaborate urn...and sitting on top of it was one of his masks...his favorite white one with the metal cross to the front. All the pews in the church were jammed full, people in somber dresses and suits. The scene seemed to be moving closer, as though a camera was moving forward through the aisle in the center of the church, though it didn't wobble or shake the way he would have expected a camera to move, just sliding smoothly forward.

Rey blinked when he started recognizing his family members and coworkers in the pews. Some of his cousins, in the same pew as Trish Stratus and Lita, a couple of friends from his school days scattered between Billy Kidman, Edge and Konnan. There were the Hardy brothers, looking unusually subdued and somber as they were settling into an empty couple of seats next to Juventud Guerrera and Psicosis, the McMahon family, all of them, about four rows back from the front. And in the front, surrounded by his parents and her's, was Angie, holding little Aalyah in her lap, with Dominik in a suit that looked a size or two too large, his head held up and held in that peculiar stiff way that Rey recognized as his way of trying to keep from crying. The images just kept moving though, past that, towards the altar, before it began to turn away...and Rey shook his head as he recognized the pictures among the flowers were all of him. Some were with friends and family, some were alone, a couple were promotional shots, but they were all of him.

"What is this...?" Rey murmured, but as the screen flickered to black and back, he winced as he recognized Chris Jericho, in a dark suit and a pair of black glasses, standing at a podium at the front of the church, talking, apparently in the middle of some kind of speech.

"Rey..." he said softly, and Rey started, wondering for just a second if he was going to talk to him through the screen somehow, but then he continued on with his speech. "Rey was my friend. He and I...didn't always get along, it's a fact. But it's also a fact that he was always the first person to be there for anyone, with a hand out, a smile, a friendly gesture, anything he could do for you to help. He was one of a very small group of genuine...genuinely good people that I've ever met in this world...and I don't know how to...make myself believe that he's really gone..."

"What?" Rey said, grunting when Kane yanked at his arms and squeezed them harder to silence him.

"When I was...asked to come up here and talk..." Jericho continued, stopping a moment to adjust his glasses, looking down at the podium, clearing his throat slightly. "I'm sorry. When I was asked to come up here and talk, I didn't think...I figured I'd have the problem...of either having to talk for hours and hours, just to try and encapsulate everything that was good about Rey, or that I would just be telling everyone what they already knew...that this was a wonderful, good man who was taken from us far, far too soon. I mean...I see faces here I haven't seen in years...I see people sitting together who by all rights should hate one another, united in grief." Chris sighed softly, pushing up his glasses again. "April 9 is a day that's...that's gonna always be marred for us. But...I know that Rey is...he's in a better place now...and he knows that we all loved him, and cared about him so much, even through everything, and that no matter what, we're never going to forget him...and we're never, ever going to stop loving him..."

Behind him, Kane snorted, and at that sound, the television went black and silent. "Man, did he ever get that part of the eulogy wrong," he chuckled. "I have to wonder how many of the other souls here got that little inanity from people at their funerals."

"That...that was my...funeral?" Rey whispered, still staring at the television, cringing when Kane squeezed his wrists again.

"And finally, you get something right on the first try." Kane laughed, that deep, evil laugh. "Yes, Rey. That was your funeral. That was your friends and family, mourning your death. Biggest damn ceremony in San Diego, I'd be willing to bet. You made international headlines."

"What? But...but it's impossible...the doctors said-,"

Kane released one of Rey's wrists to smack him hard in the back of the head. "I must be better at crafting fake realities than I thought. Maybe I'll get a few more of our old chaps to play with after they kick off." Kane practically snickered, obviously enjoying the idea. "I can just see that...I've got a lot of ideas that I don't want to waste on the likes of you, after all."

"But...I'd been having physicals, I...I wasn't...I was...I AM healthy, damnit! I'm still young, I'm healthy, how could-?"

"You burned to death," Kane said, a faint hint of glee in his voice at that announcement. "There was a freak thing at a hotel one night. Damndest thing, some idiot kid in the kitchen knocked a huge pot of grease over into the stove." He laughed again, his hand abruptly grabbing Rey's chin, squeezing his face. "You and something like four others, all went down to an oversized grease fire. I got to be honest, Rey, it cracks me up something fierce. Couldn't even have some kind of noble death after all you did in your life. They found what was left of you still in the damn bed. You didn't even wake up. I mean, honestly, what a way to go, am I right?"

Rey winced a little, not just from the fact that Kane was holding him painfully tight, but from a sick sort of ache that was coiling up in his gut. "No..." he whispered weakly.

"And after all your posturing and all your praying and everything else, God wouldn't even take you." Kane cackled. "Made sure you went out in the most ridiculous way He could think of and sent you to me. He's really a bastard, ain't He?"

Rey shivered when Kane punctuated that statement by leaning in, sniffing once along his neck. "Don't..."

Kane stood, still holding Rey, then turned, tossing him back onto the bed. Rey grunted when he landed on his front, and felt Kane immediately crawl on top of him, laying down and pinning him again. "Don't what?" Kane asked, the grin obvious in his voice even though it was all Rey could do to keep his face from being crushed into the pillow.

"Don't do this...please...Kane, please, it's not...it's not right, you don't want to..."

"Oh, don't act like that, Rey...after all this, we've wound up together in eternity, haven't we? Don't expect that I'm not going to enjoy myself. Maybe if you can play your cards right, I can let you enjoy some of it, too. No one ever said that Hell had to be all bad, did they?" Kane snorted, then laughed again, clearly amused by his own commentary. "Maybe I can even craft you a little world with a family, let you have a little fun once in a while of your own...so long as you know that mine will always come first from now on."

Rey sniffled some, his vision blurring as tears welled up, shaking his head slowly. "Please..." his voice cracked, as he felt the tears start to roll on his face beneath the mask.

"Don't worry, Rey. I'm not done with this yet. I want to have a little more fun with you first." Kane bit at his ear again, then kissed that spot lightly. "Want to see how much denial you might still be in. I have to KNOW you're broken first..." He bit hard at Rey's ear suddenly, causing the smaller man to yelp at the sharp pain. "Want to see the state you get in when you lose every last little bit of hope...makes it all so much..." He stood, flinging Rey onto his back, then was immediately atop him again, pinning his arms down, leering down at him. "So much BETTER for me." He reached down, starting to work at Rey's jeans again, pressing him against the bed with his free hand. "It's everything I can do to keep myself from finishing this now, bringing you in, keeping you for myself forever. You're such a fun little bitch to play with." He reached down, grabbing hard at the inside of Rey's thigh, pinching it a little roughly. "Not even sure I wanna keep doing these scenarios with you anymore, just to keep you with me..."

"Don't...don't..." Rey cried, squirming, still trying to work his way free. "Please..."

Kane snorted as he unfastened the button and zipper, then leaned in, kissing him hard again, biting fiercely at his lip, ignoring the noises of pain from his captive, then he leaned back up. "Go back to sleep now, Rey. As much as I would enjoy taking you for all you're worth right here and now...I think this will be your last trip before you're back to me...and then we can both have everything we want from all of this...everything we want forever..."


	19. Chapter 19

Rey gasped slightly as his eyes flew open, and he blinked dumbly up at the white ceiling for a moment, finally sitting up, looking forward at the pale walls of his hospital room, glancing back and forth a moment, then letting out a breath and laying backwards, covering his eyes with one arm, chewing his lip.

For just a second, he was able to let his brain tune out, to go gloriously blank, a welcome haven from everything...but then the swirls of thought kicked back in, memories of dream worlds or changes or-

"Oh God..." Rey whimpered, tossing aside the blankets over him and going over to the window, wrenching it open and falling to his knees next to it, closing his eyes and just feeling the cool air. "Oh God oh God oh God..."

Even though there was a part of him that felt crazy just for thinking it...how much could he deny it at this point? Surely not even someone who was crazy could hallucinate something so terrible, so utterly horrifying as...as _that_. He rested his head on the windowsill, squeezing his eyes closed, trying to hold back tears, though whether he was successful or not, he wasn't sure he cared at this point.

_I can't be in Hell...I just can't be in Hell. I'm not perfect, dear God, I know I'm not perfect but I never did anything so wrong...I wasn't so terrible that I deserve to be in Hell!_ Rey sniffed, shuddering a little, shaking his head. "Please...please please...how can I be here...what did I do wrong?"

He racked his brain, wincing. What sort of terrible thing could he have done to be cast down into this? Wrath...okay, yeah, he had some problems with wrath once in a while, he knew that, what wrestler didn't? He tried hard to keep his temper under control but a lot of times he just got pushed too far. Was that bad enough? He winced...maybe it was but he didn't think so.

Well, what else was there? Pride? There was some pride there, he knew it, even though he did the very best he could to stay humble and remember where he came from and he thanked God daily, more than daily, he prayed and was grateful for his many blessings every single day.

Was that not enough? Had there been more he could do? Rey held his head between his hands, chewing his lip, shaking his head. Whatever he had done had been terrible...horrible and unforgivable. But what did he do to deserve an eternity of torture from Kane?

There was a click behind him, and he gasped and whirled around, looking back to see Dave, this time wearing the gray uniform Rey recognized from the other security guards and nurses, making his way into the door, seeming a little surprised at the sight. "Hey, man," he said, pushing the door shut behind him. "Whatcha doing over there? Getting some air?"

Rey stood slowly, chewing his lip, then pushed away from the wall, running over and pushing into his arms, clinging to him, unable to stop the tears. "D-Dave..."

"Rey?" Dave blinked, then hesitantly hugged him back. "Rey, what's wrong? Are you okay?" He moved them back towards the bed, sitting them on it, and holding Rey against his side, looking down at him in concern.

"I...I...I can't..."

"What? What is it, Rey? Did you have another bad dream?"

"It wasn't a dream..." Rey murmured, shaking his head, still clinging to him. "Dear God, Dave, it's not a dream. This is Hell. This is really, really Hell. I didn't want to believe it but it is, it is..."

"What?" Batista pulled back a bit, taking hold of his arms. "Rey, don't talk like that. You are not in Hell, you're in Essex County-,"

"I know where I am, Dave!" Rey shouted. "I don't understand why this is all happening but I know where I am, I know what's going on!"

"Rey, I don't think you do..." Batista said, frowning deeply. "I really don't think you know what's happening."

"I do, Dave..." Rey said softly. "Kane told me, he told me everything."

"Wh...Rey, he didn't. You haven't talked to Kane, you haven't seen him in months, he's not anywhere near here. You had another of those bad dreams and I know they're scary, but they aren't real. Come on, Rey, you know better. If there's anyone either of us knows that would never go to Hell, it's you."

"I think we were both wrong, then." Rey looked up at him, sniffling. "Dave...and you're here too..."

Batista shook his head slowly, face filled with worry. "Rey, I'm not in Hell, neither are-,"

"You don't even know it yet, do you? You must have someone doing this..." Rey whimpered. "Oh God...Dave..."

"Listen, Rey...look...I know it may not seem like it but you just dreamed all that, you aren't in Hell, I promise you. You're in Essex County Hospital Center, in New Jersey, you're here getting treated because you had a major mental breakdown and you're getting better except for these wild-ass dreams. You are not in Hell. _We_ are not in Hell. We're just here at the hospital working at getting you better."

Rey shook his head furiously. "Dave...Dave, why..." He blinked, looking up at him. "You're here for me."

Dave nodded quickly. "Right. I'm here, to help you, working with you on all-,"

"Oh God..." Rey murmured softly, pulling away, getting to his feet and starting to pace. "Oh God. Oh God oh God. Oh God Dave."

"Rey? What are you doing?" Batista got to his feet slowly, tilting his head some.

Rey moved backwards until his back was against the wall, and he slid down, eyes darting back and forth across the floor, hands going to his head as he wound up sitting on the floor, knees pulled to his chest, holding his temples. "You're here for me."

"Rey, don't...it's not a big deal, I've told you...this was my choice, I was getting too old for wrestling anyway, getting hurt a lot, so I-,"

"No, Dave! You don't understand!" Rey wailed, shaking his head. "You're here because of me! You're here with me, because of me, oh my God..."

"Rey, you're starting to freak me out, man..."

"And we're not the only ones...how many people are here, Dave? I should've...Lorenzo told me at the group thing...said that the other guy...Daniel...bad nights...said he had bad nights and...what must Marcia be if she tried to hide it from me, too..."

Dave flinched a moment, blinking. "Tried to hide it from you? Tried to hide what from you?"

Rey shook his head. "If you're here for me...what did I do to bring you down with me, Dave?" Rey sniffled, shaking his head and putting his face in his hands. "If I did something to make someone else deserve Hell...I'm a monster..."

"Rey...Rey, Rey..." Dave moved closer and knelt next to him, putting a hand on his shoulder, an odd note of desperation seeping into his voice. "Rey, you didn't do anything to get either of us into Hell. You're the most caring, generous, wonderful, noble man I've ever known in my life. That's not what's happening. Please believe me, _please_."

Rey sighed softly, shaking his head. "It all makes sense, doesn't it...if I'm gone..." He looked up at Batista again. "I hope he treats them well..."

"What? Rey, what are you talking about? Who treats who well?"

"Matt...with Angie and the kids. I...I think he will...I think he'll take good care of them. Dominik always did like Jeff so much...it's...it's good for them..." He chewed his lip a little. "They're not perfect and they don't go to church enough but I've always thought they would be good family men when they settled down...they'll take care of my family for me. I have that, at least...I know my family is okay..."

"Rey..." Dave took hold of his shoulders, then cupped his face to look him in the eyes. "That's not...you're not in Hell, Rey. Dominik and Angie and Aalyah still need you...you can't give up on this, you have to get better...you can't let yourself believe you're in Hell. We still have a chance..."

"A chance for what, Dave? There's no redemption from this...there's...nothing..."

"You're not in Hell, Rey!" Batista exploded, grabbing his arms, pulling him in, then hugging him tightly. "Oh God, Rey, would you please believe me? You aren't in Hell, I swear, I promise you on my life, you just have to believe me!"

"I'm so sorry, Dave..." Rey leaned against him, tears starting to make their way down his face. "If somehow this is my fault, that you're here, I'm so so sorry...I wish I knew what I could do to save you at least...if there was any way..."

"Rey...Rey, I don't...I don't need saving...I'm fine, it's...everything is going to fine, okay? You just have to listen to me...look..." He made Rey look him in the eyes again, something like panic tracing into his tone. "Look at me, Rey. Look, you are not in Hell. You're here, you're with me, and we're not..." He sighed softly, shaking his head. "This is not a perfect situation, I know that, but it's not Hell. You're not in Hell. You're not."

"I'm sorry, Dave..." Rey murmured. "You've always been a good friend and my protector and I've let you down in the worst possible way and I'm so, so sorry..."

"Please don't...don't say things like that Rey, please, don't...don't apologize to me, there's absolutely no reason to. I promise, I promise, I swear, we're going to get you better but you have to believe me, you are not where you think you are!"

Rey just looked up at him, not saying anything, then leaned back against him, hugging him closely. Dave sighed, holding him as well, but after a couple of seconds, there was a voice through the intercom that cut through the moment.

"Dave," came an unfamiliar male voice. "You're needed downstairs now, please. There's a situation that needs your attention."

Batista glanced over his shoulder to the intercom over the bed, and for just a second his embrace on Rey tightened. He slowly got to his feet, pulling Rey up as well, then turned back to him and suddenly knelt in front of him, holding onto Rey's hands and smiling as reassuringly as he could...though Rey could tell it wasn't nearly as much as he wanted it to be.

"I'll be back, Rey, I swear. As soon as I can, I'll be back and we'll fix things, okay? We're going to get you through this, I promise. Just hold on for me, okay?"

Rey looked back at him, not saying anything, then looked down at his feet, sighing softly. "I hope you're not really you, Dave...that you're just part of this illusion. I hope you're not really here with me."

Dave winced, but got to his feet, hugging Rey tightly again. "I'll be back for you. You can count on that." He took a step back, looking down at Rey, started to turn for the door, hesitated, looked to Rey again, and finally, with something of a grunt and a sigh of resignation, turned and went to the door, knocking at it a little roughly and pushing through it determinedly as soon as it was cracked.

Rey watched him go, still crying silently, and when the door clicked shut, he leaned against the wall and slid down again, closing his eyes, knowing that was most likely the last time he'd ever see his friend, illusionary or not. If things were the way he hoped, that wasn't really Dave, just another of Kane's tricks, and the real Dave was somewhere else, somewhere infinitely better than this with a good, happy life and not even slightly contemplating the fate that had befallen his dear friend. Rey managed to take some comfort in that thought, despite everything else. As long as his family and his friends were still blessed and happy, he could always find some marginal comfort for himself.

He slowly crawled back to his feet, then walked to the bed, climbing onto it and laying back, closing his eyes and trying to relax. If this was the last time Kane would send him back, then there was likely nothing to do but wait for this to be over, before he was brought back for his tormenter to finally have his entire way with, to do with as he pleased.

He wasn't sure how long he waited. The sun moved through the sky outside, the shadows of the trees shifted around in a vague circle. At one point the blonde nurse who'd checked on him before, when he had been ill in the bathroom, brought him lunch and eventually came to take away the untouched tray, trying to draw a response from him, but Rey couldn't find it in himself to say anything. Later, when the sky outside had gone dark, Keith, who had wheeled him from place to place before, brought another tray, and soon came to take it away, and he tried joking and mentioning a funny television show that would be on later featuring George Lopez, one of Rey's favorite comedians, but finally he left as well. A doctor, not Dr. Asheville but a middle-aged man with what hair he had left dyed a frankly ridiculous shade of bright brown, came by and spoke to him, shined a light in his eyes, took his blood pressure and temperature, and wrote on his clipboard. Rey didn't fight him, offered no resistance, but simply allowed him to do what he came to do and be on his way, with much muttering and what-a-shame clucking his tongue as he went.

Rey knew none of it would matter. Whenever Kane decided that he was ready, this would all vanish and be gone for good. No point to anything. No reason to react to it. Kane was somewhere waiting for him and enjoying his misery, and whenever he decided he'd soaked in it long enough, that was that.

Finally, finally, just as Rey was first beginning to see hints of dawn through the nighttime outside, drowsiness became too much for him-sleep always prefaced the switch, he'd finally figured that out-and he knew it was time, and finally, he allowed himself, for the last time, at least in this world, to slip into sleep.

( )

The End...of this story. Don't freak out about the ending, though! The sequel "Out Of Hell" is coming as soon as possible! It's going to be, shall we say...full of surprises! --Mysty

Added: The sequel, Out Of Hell, is now located here: www. fanfiction .net/s/5357249/1/Out_Of_Hell (minus the spaces in the first part!)


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